


When All Is Said

by BeansEtc



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Angst, Drama, Dubious Consent, M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-12-28
Updated: 2002-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9870362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeansEtc/pseuds/BeansEtc
Summary: Dilandau finds himself forced to deal with one of his subordinates on unfamiliar and unwelcome circumstances.





	1. Opening Words

**Author's Note:**

> Staind :: Outside
> 
> And you bring me to my knees  
> Again  
> All the times  
> That I could beg you please  
> In vain  
> All the times  
> That I felt insecure  
> For you  
> And I leave my burdens at the door
> 
> But I'm on the outside  
> I'm looking in  
> I can see through you  
> See your true colors  
> 'Cause inside you're ugly  
> You're ugly like me  
> I can see through you  
> See to the real you
> 
> All the times that I felt like this won't end  
> Was for you  
> And I taste what I could never have  
> It’s from you  
> All those times that I tried  
> My intentions  
> Full of pride  
> And I waste more time than anyone
> 
> But I'm on the outside  
> And I'm looking in  
> I can see through you  
> See your true colors  
> 'Cause inside you're ugly  
> You're ugly like me  
> I can see through you  
> See to the real you
> 
> All the times that I've cried  
> All that’s wasted  
> It's all inside  
> But I feel all this pain  
> Stuffed it down  
> It's back again  
> And I lie  
> Here in bed  
> All alone  
> I can't mend  
> And I feel tomorrow will be okay
> 
> But I'm on the outside  
> I'm looking in  
> I can see through you  
> See your true colors  
> 'Cause inside you're ugly  
> You're ugly like me  
> I can see through you  
> See to the real you

Miguel padded barefoot down the back third-level corridor of the Vione, his steps brisk and jumpy over the cold floor beneath the soles of his feet. An early chill hung lightly on the morning air of the hallway, spiraling in through the jarred portholes to dance tingling around his ankles. He shifted the change of clothes tucked under his arm to both hands and buried the bundle of deep folds against him to buffer the draft as he made his way along the empty corridor.

Muffling back a yawn, he partly wished he hadn't torn himself from the warm embrace of his bed covers so early. Fortunately, as he'd hoped the hall had been deserted and he'd been able to trek down from the bunk room without incident.

The corridor branched off into a set of short wire stairs leading below the deck to the showers. He took them two at a time, stopping at the door at the bottom and pressing his palm to the entry gage and the door slid open with a low hiss. Miguel poked his head around the door frame and did a quick surveillance of the long room; then once he was sure it was empty he sidled inside, pulling a towel from the rack near the door and tossing his change of clothes over the bench running between the rows of showers.

The Dragonslayer climbed into one of the nearest stalls and fumbled with the valve until a warm spray of water sputtered from the faucet above. The steam billowed around his head while he shrugged out of his cotton nightshirt and breeches. He tossed them aside, rolling his left shoulder and kneading the muscles with the ball of his hand - he'd pulled something last night, sure enough. He would make a point of teasing Shesta later about having worked him so hard.

Twisting his head around, Miguel spotted another noticeable rose tinge on the back of his shoulder that he'd missed earlier. He reached up and fingered the side of his neck, brushing his finger tips over the line of similar bruises that trailed its length. The tiny blond slayer had definitely given him a run last night. Halfway through, Miguel had already known he would have to do well to beat the morning mass to the showers the next morning to avoid unwanted attention being drawn to Shesta's clandestine souvenirs.

The steam from the hot water was beckoning, working loose Miguel's shoulders and relaxing the knots in his limbs. He had just stepped into the rain of the shower spray and was savoring its steady warmth over his back when there was the unmistakable sound of the sliding door. Miguel started sharply and spun around as the entry slid open and a figure stepped into the room. He blanched.

_"Lord Dilandau -?"_

The Dragonslayer captain stopped short at Miguel's exclamation, faltering as he suddenly seemed aware that the room was not empty. Garnet eyes flew in the direction of Miguel's shower stall and the slayer very abruptly realized how exposed he was. He grappled behind him for his towel, pulling it around his waist in a rush, his head reeling. It was well-known that the captain was an early riser, but he had been the very last person Miguel had ever expected to walk into the communal showers this morning - Dilandau had his own private bath in his chambers.

The captain cast a darting glance over the other rows of showers as if confirming Miguel was the only unexpected occupant, and then he turned his eyes back to him, appraising him carefully.

"What are you doing here so early, Miguel?" he snapped.

Miguel stumbled, pushing his wet bangs back with his hand and feeling his face flush. "J- just wanted to beat the rush this morning, lord -" he stammered quickly, paused, then added with careful timidness: "Sir. . .what are _you_ doing down here -?"

Dilandau seemed to almost hesitate, and then to the slayer's surprise the albino snatched a towel from the rack to the side and approached the length of booths, staring at Miguel pointedly.

"The shower in my quarters isn't working, something with the damn plumbing," he replied briskly, visibly irritated. "And I'm not holding my breath for maintenance to drag themselves up off their ass to fix it."

A breath caught in Miguel's throat. The captain was showering here? Now?

_Oh god, no. Not Dilandau Albatou. Anyone but Dilandau. . ._

He just nodded blankly, watching tentatively as Dilandau passed. He was carrying his clothing and boots under his arm, his bare feet slapping over the wet floor, wearing just a pair of loose white flannel breeches and an open shirt.

Dilandau glanced tersely at him and paused, pushing his silvery fringe back from his face that fell unrestrained in the absence of the metal circlet, and with awe Miguel became aware that he'd never seen the captain in such an unkempt manner. It was enticing to see him so casual and unadorned, and he was entrapped by how elegant he looked in the simple white, cotton nightshirt.

Blinking, Miguel quickly shook himself from his musings as the captain stopped in front of him. He wilted under his stare, paling slightly as the albino's red eyes critiqued him, then Dilandau's stare narrowed slightly and he jabbed a finger at him.

"You better damn cover that crap up before morning drills," he hissed.

Miguel flushed brilliantly and frantically jerked a hand to his neck to hide the rose bruises, causing him to loose his grip on his covering momentarily. The captain snorted and gave him a sharp look and Miguel turned his head down, fumbling with his towel.

"Yes sir," he affirmed, looking up from under the top of his eyes and trying his best not to notice how the lip of Dilandau's pants hugged just at the edge of his hips; or how his open shirt fell back along his shoulders, revealing a pretty amount of the smooth milky skin underneath. As if privy to his musings, Dilandau pulled the shirt closer around him as if to hide from Miguel's prying eyes, then turned and set off further down the room.

Miguel exhaled deeply, running a hand back through his hair and slowly discarded the towel once more. He turned back into the shower, and as he bent back under the stream of water he dared to dart a glance out of the corner of his eye, letting his gaze follow Dilandau as he climbed into a booth far along the next row. There was a moments pause, and Miguel wavered as he watched the silver-haired soldier strip off his nightshirt and then slip off his pants.

Miguel drew in a breath as something fluttered in his chest. His mouth parted a little. Against all rational thinking, he took a small sidestep to his left and cautiously lifted his eyes a fraction, just beyond the tops of the stalls that obscured his vision.

He hardly blinked, utterly and completely enthralled as he dared to watch the steaming water roll down the pale skin, stealing the sight of the lightly toned muscle and the curve of the back of Dilandau's legs. His eyes trailed the albino's figure taking in every meticulous detail: the way the wet clinging strands of silver hair fell across his face; how he held himself on the balls of his feet and leaned into the rain of water. All of Miguel's long-practiced restraint could not force him to tear his eyes away. It felt almost ethereal.

Thick steam billowed up from the hot running water, giving the room a soft haze as Miguel teetered on the soles of his feet and watched ardently as his lord showered. He felt dizzy, and suddenly the warm spray of the water from above him was only partial to the wave of heat that swept his body.

With a gasp, Miguel wildly snatched his towel once more. It clung against his waist and the side of his thighs as the shower spray soaked it through and he frantically slid down against the side the stall, his face reddening deeply.

_Oh god. Jesus, not here, not like this. . ._

Panicking, he desperately fought to calm himself and lighten his breaths, but just the sound of the pounding water in the other shower sent ripples of provocation through his body. Miguel inhaled slowly, closing his eyes, but he found himself nevertheless drowning in the smooth cream skin and subtle curve of the hips that smoldered an imprint in the back of his mind. It left him breathless. He trembled lightly as the water cascaded over him, pooling around his feet and spilling down into the drain in the corner of the floor.

His reverie lasted only a fleeting moment, and he was jarred from his daze as the blended sound of running water suddenly trickled off, leaving the rain from the single faucet above him alone to dapple against the floor in the silence of the chamber. Miguel jerked, catching the rustle of dressing beyond him, and he was driven by frenzied alarm as he reached out against the wall and pulled himself to his feet. He whipped out his hand and wrenched the shower valve off, pulling his towel tighter around him, and rushing to drain the rose tinge from his cheeks as he heard footfalls near.

Gathering his composure, Miguel turned and abruptly stifled a startled gasp when he immediately came face to face with a steely narrowed gaze. The air felt like it was being sucked out of his lungs as he fell under the pair of smoldering garnet eyes, staring out from under a veil of delicately matted silver strands that glistened with damp beads and burning into the very back of his head.

_"Stop it."_

The single biting command from captain's lips drove the strength from the brunette's legs and Miguel braced a hand against the wall of the shower, his eyes wide, the color draining from his face. A coerced chill seized the length of his spine.

He was motionless as without another word Dilandau turned and fisted the entry gage. The door opened and he walked out, disappearing up the stairs.

The door closed and the world seemed to give a lurch. Miguel collapsed against the side of the shower stall, sweating and shaking. He mouthed wordlessly and held his shoulders against the sudden biting cold that gripped him, staring hollowly at the door; the silence broken only by the steady trickle of cooling water that fell to the floor.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

He hadn't come.

Dilandau hunched back in the blanketed throne, veiled in pitted shadows cast from the lamps mounted along the walls. His brow creased and he prodded the tips of his teeth with his tongue, drumming a finger against the arm of the elegantly carved chair. Slitted eyes stared through the dark like glowing embers reflecting a slow brewing seethe.

He hadn't come.

Routine morning practice had come and gone: two hours offensive and defensive combat drills, another hour down on the field training in the Alseides units. Afterwards, the Dragonslayers had filed out of the assembly hall following a quick briefing, each patrol heading off to their assigned stations and duties with a sharp salute. The morning had bled into early afternoon, the routine, crisp, practiced exchange of steel blades had been made, while Dilandau's patience and temperament had perilously waned - and the undermining, goddamn bastard had never shown up.

Dilandau cracked his knuckles. An ugly snarl pulled at his upper lip.

_How dare you, Lavariel. . ._

Dilandau had sent an explicit summon to the absent slayer immediately following training; he'd be damned if he was about to let the brunette walk away from such defiance unscathed. Miguel had skipped out on drills and then had had the nerve to protect his insolence behind Shesta's innocent guise; the blond covering for the slayer's truancy and upon Dilandau's questioning had dared to feed him some bull about Miguel feeling ill.

Had Miguel seriously believed his blatant absence would have gone unnoticed? That in itself was enough to kindle the livid rage that boiled in the pit of Dilandau's stomach. The slayer had better damn well be ill - he had better be flat on his back dead, if nothing else.

 _But then,_ Dilandau was bitterly hesitant to remind himself, _this wasn't completely unexpected, was it?_

He sneered inwardly. No, Miguel was too sickeningly predictable for this to have come as a total surprise. This wasn't about Miguel trying to shirk his duties. He wasn't trying to proof a point through his defiance.

Miguel was hiding.

Hiding from Dilandau. From what had happened earlier that morning amongst the billowing steam beneath the level of the third deck.

Dilandau bent forward in his seat, his eyes hooded, teething the leather encased knuckles of his fist.

He shouldn't have even risked the showers. Of course he should have turned back when he'd realized someone had been there - when he'd realized _Miguel_ had been there. Dilandau had been completely aware of the situation for too long now; he should have known better.

It had been a hard, barreling revelation of truth that had practically shattered his pride in a single reeling blow. A few months back, when the war was still only adolescent sieges and weaning short-lived battles, a handsome victory had brought about a night of unruly celebration and revelry upon return to the capital to resupply. In celebration the captain and his men had plied each other with drinks all around, through the night becoming so splendidly under the influence of the hard liquor that they would have been at a loss to have noticed as much as a mecha invasion of thousands.

And Dilandau remembered - amongst the drunk mulling Miguel had grabbed his wrist and pulled him up against him in such a way. His eyes had been laden with an alarming feverish passion, and then for a split moment in his lost judgment, Miguel had made to lean his head forward.

The abrupt gesture had shaken Dilandau from his stupor with the force like a blow from the butt of a sword, chilling his flesh and knocking him into immediate sobriety. He'd immediately wrenched his hand back and shoved Miguel away before the boy had become too bold, but the damage had been done. He had seen Miguel's eyes, he had felt Miguel's fingers warm around his wrist. The tenderness had terrified him.

The next morning, harboring humiliation and outrage, Dilandau had summoned the Dragonslayer to the privacy of the empty sparring chamber and Miguel had been severely beaten for his offense. The slayer's perfuse apologies had worn no heed from the captain, only enraging him further. For a week afterwards, Dilandau had kept in a foul mood that had been brought down upon the rest of his charges, while Miguel had spent a further week nursing a limp and a fractured wrist. The concept had been utterly flooring, and despite Miguel having had put up a desperate front of the incident being a result from the liquor and nothing more, suddenly Dilandau had known, nonetheless. He'd known, and by all his battered dignity, god, he wished he hadn't.

Things had by all general respects remained unchanged. Miguel still remained his subordinate and Dilandau his lord, and Dilandau continuously forced himself to uphold the proper dignity befitting his status. But beneath the establish veneer he had been horrified and repulsed as he had been slowly forced to face the realization of that truth, gradually becoming aware of the subtle gestures he had never bothered to notice before: fleeting, stolen glances; quickening breaths; tiny tremors that rippled Miguel's skin when Dilandau touched him. Fortunately, the other men appeared blind to Miguel's infatuation, and since then Dilandau had resolved to hold his tongue; to turn a blind eye at the brunette's subtle affections; to turn away whenever he caught Miguel's look, like he was undressing the captain with his eyes.

Dilandau hunched back in his chair again, his eyes burning wide, stroking the fine line of his jaw with an absent finger. He swore under his breath.

Letting it go on this long, that had been his first mistake. The incident earlier this morning he was afraid had taken it a world past too far.

His insides had lurched when he'd felt Miguel's gaze on the back of his skin, the blue eyes tumbling over his shoulders and legs with a ferocious heat that Dilandau hadn't needed to turn around to witness. He'd bit his tongue and hurried his shower while a cold repulsion had crawled under his skin at the thought of what taunting musings had been burning in Miguel's head; what the stolen sight could have possibly been provoking.

There was a reason he wasn't supposed to use the communal showers. If Folken found out Dilandau would be penalized for sure; at the least, it would be a black mark on his already scathed, esteemed record - but the showers should have been empty at that time in the morning before the shift change. Leave it to Miguel to wake up before first call in an effort to hide Shesta's damn suckling.

But Miguel had taken this too far now. The slayer had taken a dangerous risk in breaching Dilandau's tolerance when he'd never shown up for duty this morning, and Dilandau held no pity in respect to the slayer's motives. He was too overcome with the livid rage boiling in his gut at this mornings insult - unintentional or otherwise - to care whether Miguel's behavior was spurned by pure arrogance or this sick devotion.

There was no justification. There was no excuse. This was going to stop _now._

Across the room there was the soft sound of a sliding door. Light footfalls shuffled and faltered of someone who had paced themselves very deliberately and wasn't sure what to do now that they were here. The breathing was tight and strained like they were being slowly stifled by the dead silence that hung from the rafters overhead.

Dilandau didn't move or even look up. Leaning his head on a fist, he watched under the lids of his eyes as Miguel sidled into the chamber and approached the dais very slowly, his steps small and stiff and undoubtably furtive. The slayer's eyes were masked under a fan of untidy cinnamon hair that fanned his face. It looked as if he hadn't heeded to straighten it after his shower that morning.

Without a word, Miguel halted before the throne and immediately fell down to his knees, bowing his head low to the floor. Dilandau cracked his knuckles around the arm of the chair.

_"Get. Up."_

Almost shakily, the Dragonslayer obeyed and stood but kept his head dropped low. Dilandau rose from his chair and the dead of the room was broken sharply by a short grunt and the splitting crack of hard bone beneath a leathered fist. He sneered as Miguel writhed on the floor clutching his face where a deep red bruise was already blistering, and then Dilandau immediately wrenched him back up by the collar of his jacket, renewed rage boiling up through his chest.

"You think yourself to have unshared privileges?!" he spat, shaking Miguel by the neck of his uniform and practically lifting the brunette off his feet. The brown fringe was tossed back, revealing deep blue eyes locked wide in panic and a bead of sweat that glistened across Miguel's brow.

Dilandau's lips curled back and his fingers tightened around Miguel's collar. He jarred him roughly again.

 _"Where - were - you?"_ he hissed through gritted teeth, borrowing under the slayer's skin with the licking flames in his gaze, daring Miguel to look away; daring him to lie to him.

Miguel didn't fight, but he looked like he was trying to avoid Dilandau's branding stare. Racking breaths shook his voice and he quavered.

"F- forgive me, Lord Dilandau. . . I was unwell this morning -"

There was a sharp exclamation and Miguel's head was whipped back as Dilandau swung another sharp blow to his cheek. The captain barred down upon the cringing soldier, eyes blazing in fury. Still holding him up by his collar, Dilandau grabbed a chunk of Miguel's brown hair in his other fist and twisted his head up, forcing him to meet his eyes.

"Do you think I'm a fool?!"

" _No,_ my lord -" Miguel whispered desperately.

"Then do not patronize me!"

The slayer looked pained and his wavering gaze shook at the biting accusation. The aghast look in his eyes veiled something deeper that Dilandau recognized from previous encounters, hidden in elusive glances when his back was turned and masked under a passive blue stare whenever Dilandau touched him. It had always been fleeting in times prior, unshaped words that he'd always felt being burned in the back of his head and that would flee like a frightened animal the moment Dilandau dared confront Miguel's gaze. He'd gained considerable practice at distancing himself from it until now, but here it met him mere inches away, unrestrained; so insolent and bold in the unspoken words that they flayed Dilandau's nerves like hot molten fire.

A finger of cold apprehension traced his spine making the hair on the back of his neck prickle, and Dilandau was seized by a rush of irrational terror. With a snarl, he swung around and drove Miguel back, slamming the slayer up against the rear of the wall, driven by this sudden mix of fear and rage provoked adrenaline.

 _Smother it. . ._ Dilandau's head was spinning. _Just smother it off his face. . ._

He twisted Miguel's head up again to look at him, pulling back the brown fan of hair so the slayer couldn't hide the look disguised in the depths of his eyes. There was only a little yelp of strangled pain from the other young man as Dilandau shoved against him, snarling, trying to stare down that stifling yearning under those blue eyes.

He heard Miguel's breaths come in ragged, frantic gasps as Dilandau pressed him harder against the bricks. Dilandau could feel him shake and saw his face contort in a line of pain, but the slayer didn't struggle or fight back. He wouldn't dare. Dilandau would break his damn arm if he tried to push back. He might just break it anyway; maybe then that would strip that burning insatiable gaze from Miguel's face that had the nerve to stare up at Dilandau with so much feverish insolence and terrifying coveting.

But as he bared down upon Miguel harder, he was gripped by a sudden split moment of vague realization and reality of the situation. God, this was probably nothing but exactly what Miguel had always dreamed of - locked against a wall with Dilandau pressing solidly up against him holding him there. He went cold at his fault, horrified and disgusted at the thought of Miguel's possible reverie at that moment; of how the slayer could be relishing it, and only further feeding the rapture that crested his gaze.

Repulsed, Dilandau instantly jerked and shoved himself violently away from Miguel's figure, stumbling back several feet and letting Miguel slide heavily to the floor. He sneered and collapsed back into the blanketed throne, half-aware of the sound of Miguel wheezing on the ground trying to catch his breath. He could feel the heat of the Dragonslayer's stare branding his skin once more, and Dilandau grit his teeth, burying his brow into the palms of his hands. There was a very long length of silence, deafening, that strangled the sound of the fallen slayer's heavy breathing. Several minutes passed before Dilandau spoke.

"Get out," he hissed, not looking up.

There was a pause, and then he heard Miguel slowly pick himself up off the ground. The sound of his boots treaded across the floor unsurely then stopped in front of the dais. Dilandau cringed as he watched under the lids of his eyes as Miguel bowed unsteadily to him in salute, and just as the slayer turned to head towards the door Dilandau looked up.

"Stop this, Miguel,"

The Dragonslayer stopped short and turned slowly to face him again. His face was flushed and his expression was an odd mix of restraint, anxiety, and confusion. "Lord Dilandau -"

The captain cut him off short with a sharp backhand to the face. Miguel writhed, clutching his cheek and stared at Dilandau as he rose slowly from his seat. Dilandau's eyes slitted and he loomed over Miguel from the top step of the dais, meeting the brunette's eyes, and then he spoke in a hissed whisper, deliberately clear and scathing.

"Whatever this infatuation you're entertaining - _get over it._ "

The air in the room wavered timidly. He could hear the breath catch in Miguel's throat. The slayer's eyes shot open wide and he went stark white, seeming to freeze solid where he stood as his mouth moved with no coherent sound. An eternity passed like a transient curl of smoke, then the rafters overhead rebounded with echoes carried on the heels of Miguel's flight.

 

 

_He knew oh god he knew he knew he knew._

The chamber entrance slid closed behind Miguel with an abrasive hiss. He stumbled slightly in his hurried tread, froze, then with a shudder his legs gave out from beneath him and Miguel sank unsteadily to his knees in the refuge of the secluded corridor.

_He knew oh god. He knew._

Jesus, it was suddenly so cold. He couldn't breathe.

Miguel blinked, the silence of the empty hallway flooding and cascading around him like suffocating dunes of sand. All he could do was gaze at the assembly hall door in a withered, ethereal stare. A choked rasp finally wrenched up through his chest and he fell forward slowly until his head leaned lightly against the heavy iron, gritting his teeth and screwing his eyes tight. Every muscle in his body felt limp; every limb a dead weight.

Raising an arm feebly, Miguel pressed his hand against the door, brushing the iron frame with trembling finger tips. There was a heat that radiated through his skin from beyond the door that chilled his flesh like dry ice. His lips quivered in fluttering breaths as he ran his fingers down the solid metal frame, both exhilarated and terrified; wanting to tear it down, and at the same time bracing it, holding it firm - as if it were to fall his last desperate thread of reality would crumble in that heat and he'd sink.

How long had he known? It didn't matter. . .

It had been so biting. So abominably cold and scathing. It had torn Miguel from a fragile world of crystal glass that lay broken and shattered behind the door.

Why did it hurt this much. . .

There were footsteps behind him, tentative and gentle. Miguel turned his head very slightly and met Shesta's approach silhouetted in the dim light of corridor, the blond slayer's expression etched with anxious concern.

Clinging to the iron frame, Miguel sought desperate salvation in the warm, compassionate green eyes on the merest breath of a whisper: "He knows. . ."


	2. First Addressment

Early evening arrived, dragging the sun tediously across the west and punctuated by the sharp ring of steel. It was uncomfortably humid and Dilandau was irritable and tense. He fidgeted in his seat, watching the waning daylight shine through the large glass windows, illuminating the thin tendrils of dust that swirled up under the paths of a dozen Dragonslayers as they maneuvered their partners back and forth across the sparring room.

It was only approaching the first evening shift change and Dilandau was feeling unaccustomly worn. For a new change he was actually impatiently awaiting the end of afternoon practice and an early retire. He needed a strong drink, and maybe a whore - if even only for a short hour.

It had been a several days since he'd confronted Miguel and the time had progressed with a quiet, uneasy air that gnawed at him steadily. He didn't know how long he had waited before venturing out of the assembly hall that night after Miguel had fled. For a long while, he had sat hunched back in his chair staring reproachfully at the closed door, unnerved. Something on the other side had scared him into cessation; a radiating tendril of heat that had made him shudder and his cheeks flush.

The next morning he'd watched anxiously as the Dragonslayers had filed into briefing; upon Dilandau's biting threat the prior night, Miguel had not attempted truancy again. Dilandau wasn't sure if the soldier's attendance was settling or not. There was an obvious and alarming shift in Miguel's composure now that put Dilandau on edge and made him weary - the brunette went about his duties obediently, but he was quiet and sullen, and seemed jittery in his tasks. Dilandau had even once considered confronting Miguel after duty, but words had been unlending to him and he'd been censored by his shaken pride.

Grunting, Dilandau rubbed his temple slowly. He hadn't slept well last evening and had spent the night half awake nursing a dry bottle of vino. His head felt heavy and he tried to keep his focus on the afternoon practice; barking at Dallet for pivoting too slowly, razing on Gatty for dropping his shoulder when he lunged. The exercises seemed tedious today however, and too much weighed on his mind to pay his usual attention to meticulous detail, save the exception of a single body.

His eyes lingered on Miguel, assessing uneasily, appraising the slayer's moves and expression as he was danced through a series of cuts and thrusts; noticing every falter, every hesitation. Even a blind man could have seen the slayer's feigned attention. Miguel was slipping up in such definite ways it was alarming. Earlier in practice he had appeared so hollow that he'd left his left flank wide open, a blatant amateurs mistake that would have killed him had he been in a real fight. The careless fault had sent Dilandau rising from his observation near the back wall and he'd cuffed Miguel hard across the face in a stinging berate that had made the other Dragonslayer's grimace.

Dilandau remembered the feeling of Miguel's head being whipped back under the blow of his hand. He'd struck him harder than he'd actually intended, but as he had watched Miguel cradle his face Dilandau had wanted to strike him again. Hard. Harder, until the heaviness in his head dulled - but he'd held himself back and only cast Miguel a smoldering look, withdrawn, and the practice had continued.

For the remainder of the afternoon Dilandau remained especially on edge, watching Miguel's progress with criticizing appraise. Expectedly, Shesta clung about the brunette's side like a protective patron and confronted the albino's gaze in a timid plead when he caught his look. Miguel never once met Dilandau's eyes.

The end of the exercise was finally signaled, and there was a familiar heavy air of unified exhaustion as the Dragonslayers mulled about and slowly drifted out of the sparring chamber. Miguel seemed quick out the door, and out of the corner of his eye Dilandau saw Shesta's stare follow the brunette's brisk leave. As the blond slayer hurried to collect his jacket and sword, Dilandau came up silently beside where Shesta was getting to his feet and tapped his finger twice on the flat of the bench in a very clear command that meant "stay here."

Shesta paused and glanced up at Dilandau furtively, biting his lip. He looked fleetingly back towards the exit, then once more back at the captain, and then with a wavering sigh obediently sat down again.

 

 

"How long is Miguel going to keep this crap up?"

Dilandau's voice was sharp. Tracing the rim of an empty wine glass from his side table, he stared down the blond slayer standing erect across from him, the chamber empty now save themselves alone. Shesta blinked and wrung his hands at his sides. His mouth opened and closed as he withered under Dilandau's steely gaze, looking abashed.

"I- I'm not sure I understand what you mean, sir -" he struggled feebly, his voice quavering as he avoided the captain's stare. Dilandau's eyes narrowed.

"Shesta, you screw each other whenever the two of you get an open chance," he accused stingingly, in a tone that implied he was dangerously waning on patience. "Heaven forbid either of you ever make use of a good whore. You scurry around with him all the time so don't bullshit me and tell me you don't know what's going on."

He saw Shesta's face flush and the slayer waver on his feet. Leaning forward in his seat, Dilandau fixed Shesta with a solid resolute gaze, holding him to the spot, and his voice lowered.

". . . Is he finished with this?"

The young Dragonslayer shifted uncomfortably, lowering his blond head.

"Lord Dilandau. . ."

"Do _not_ bullshit me, Shesta. Is he?"

There was a long, drawn out pause. Very slowly, Shesta raised his head. He met Dilandau's eyes firmly in a furtive, pained expression, then his shoulders fell and he spoke in a strained, fluttering voice. "He can't force himself to stop loving you, sir."

 _"Fuck me. . ."_ Dilandau hissed. His lip curled back and he buried his face in his hand. "Get out."

He barely heard Shesta's hasty exit. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he shuddered. Tumbling blue eyes seared him like a hot poker sprung from the dark. Dilandau grit his teeth, his hand curling tightly around the empty wine glass, and then punctuating a tight, enraged exclamation, the goblet erupted into shatters of glass against the wall.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

In the far back hidden halls of the Vione, a cold draft hung from the stones and pooled in the corners of the floor. No one ever ventured down these hallways. They were just long, never-ending treks of brick and iron rafters no one ever used and that always carried a chill. Miguel sat completely alone in the empty corridor, hooded in a blanket of shadows and drowning in the cold.

He couldn't move. It hurt too much to try so he didn't, and instead he stayed curled up against the wall, his legs drawn up to his chest and staring at his knees. Dark circles had drawn themselves under his eyes and he looked jadedly pale. He wrapped his arms tighter around his shoulders, trying to shelter and hold onto the warmth that was being sucked dry from himself as his tongue probed gently at the lingering, coppery taste of his own blood in his mouth.

He thought about letting himself die right here. Freeze to death, drown in the cold, alone in this empty corridor.

. . . But he had never given him permission to die - and everything needed Dilandau Albatou's permission, even death. Death, and speech, and touch were things only allowed if given grant for the privilege.

_Dilandau. . ._

Miguel had felt the garnet eyes watching him agitatedly through practice earlier. He'd left the sparring hall quickly, and some how tried his best to feel surprised when he'd received the anticipated summon not even a half-hour afterwards. Shesta had cast him a furtive look and bit his lip when he'd past him in the corridor on the way down, and Miguel had drawn out his tread. When he'd finally arrived at the sparring chamber, Dilandau had been waiting for him.

No sooner had the slayer slid inside, the door had barely closed once more and he had fell under the captain's first throw. Writhing on the floor, Miguel had made the abominable mistake of daring to look up and confront the red eyes for a single fleeting second, and with that Dilandau had bared down upon him in an enraged fury and mercilessness; unrestrained and brutal.

Teething his lip, Miguel fingered his swollen black jaw tenderly. Dilandau had never said a single word. Not one. But between the stinging falls of the leather fist he had seen the look in the albino's eyes: licking wide and alive with a smoldering fury and loathing, while veiled agonizingly deep beneath, a pulsing, unrestrained fear - and when Dilandau was scared or confused, he became violent. The swelling black bruises which laden Miguel's arms and face were nothing but of his own making.

Tendrils of frigid air snaked around Miguel's ankles and his body gave an instinctive shiver. He wondered remotely how long it had been since he'd collapsed in the hallway. It felt like hours . . . days. Shesta would be looking for him now. The blond would coerce him up to the medical wing and then spend the night fussing plaintively over him with tender, gentle kisses and soft strokes. Usually Miguel welcomed the tiny slayer's comfort and coddling, but all he wanted right now was to drown in this horrible cold.

_Dilandau. . ._

The chill stung at his face, cutting like a razor, and Miguel winced. It was ironic, really. It seemed somehow severely unjust but fitting that such feelings that welled inside him in this cold had also been the prelude to his fancies that lay tangled and bleeding now somewhere up in the dark assembly hall. That such a horrible, wrenching emotion spurred his thoughts back to his first encounter with Dilandau Albatou: standing in long queue in dim lamp-shaded lights of the chamber before the young lord, tentative and entrapped, freshly christened with praise and rank, and awaiting inspection by the steely red stare. Dilandau had touched the side of the brunette's arm as he'd past behind the line and a jolt had run through Miguel's limb as if it had been pierced by cold, sparkling metallic shards. He'd caught a breath in his throat and closed his eyes, and for a split second sparks of red and silver had exploded behind his lids unlike anything he had ever experienced.

Never before had he yearned for something so passionately, craving in return of his life for just one touch; a single brush of contact; a momentary glimpse. It swelled Miguel with an emotion so intense and wanton that it brought him to his knees in sparse of breath - but such elation was not without strings. He knew the risks he taunted with his affection, of course he did, and it was enough threat to force him to hide it as much as he was able to; leaving his haunts and unsatisfied reveries to kiss his thoughts only and turn him in bed alone at night.

Watch but no touch. Crave but never take. Fundamental rules of his own survival that Miguel had learned early and had worn grooves into long since.

Touch. He remembered the first time he had ever dared to touch without sanction. Still fresh from recruitment, Miguel had once observed secretly Dilandau spar with Gatty late in the afternoon. Afterwards, the silver-haired soldier had removed his jacket in the heat and slung it over the arm of the throne. When the captain and his second had left the room, Miguel had fingered the wear furtively, cautiously, constantly looking nervously over his shoulder like a scared hare; and then in a rush of giddy thrill he'd buried his face in the soft leather and titillating scent, his senses flooding with the stolen privilege. It had amazed him that something so bloodstained could smell so clean, and pure, and chaste.

_Dilandau Albatou. . ._

Nothing made him feel like it did when he watched him. Miguel had made a cautious, carefully practiced habit of settling outside the entrance of the sparring chamber late at night, just beyond the corner, to watch the captain train alone. He never felt so thrillingly warm and cold at the same time as when he'd sit there enthralled in Dilandau's dance. The absolute perfection if it: the crisp, smooth thrusts; clean, fiercely timed precision; drowning in the single thin bead of sweat that would glisten on the back of the white neck in the heat and exuberance of the captain's exercise - until Shesta would be on his arm pulling him gently away.

The blond slayer was the constant voice of concern to his affection, always brushing him with timid, anxious tones of the jeopardy that came with Miguel's devotion to their lord. It was easy for him to scoff - Shesta never looked at anyone. He could be surrounded by the alluring lull of a score of other men in the bunks or the showers and he would keep his eyes averted down and decent. But when Miguel would undress, in their times alone together, Shesta's eyes would trail his movements and the sways of his figure as if the blond slayer had never seen Miguel so intimately close and private. Miguel appreciated the comfort and attention.

But Shesta didn't understand. He could never know what it was like to feel this much pain. It tore Miguel apart from the inside to long for everything he ever wanted at such a distance. To be so close to something he could never have, and to desire absolutely nothing more than a mere touch of that world of exquisite crystal glass. To kiss his tears; to taste his sweat; to move in smooth, perfect time with the alabaster skin pressed up against him. . .

It was a magnificently cruel, mocking reverie he couldn't bare to settle, and it burned him hollow.

Because like all other privileges in the world, love needed Dilandau's permission as well. Terms of endearment didn't sit well with the captain. He was uncommon to accept it and even more rare to voice it, and when he dared to it was dutifully undertoned. Affection was something to be earned through hard work and practiced skill, and then still he would demand more - Dilandau took your best and critiqued it, berate it, and punished it. Never praised. But that was his way. He was harsh with them to drive them to be stronger.

Watch but no touch; crave but never take. Fundamental rules. Don't give enough and you were punished; give too much and you were punished worse. Cross the line and you wound up dead. Miguel should have been dead. He wished he was, because this was so cold. . .

_Lord Dilandau._

In the corners of the empty corridor, the shadows bled into one another, so black and deep that a person could lose themselves forever. Alone, Miguel hugged his legs tight against him as unshed emotion stung his eyes. Fresh bruises blistered, blackened, and swelled. He could still taste the blood in his mouth. Somewhere faraway in the dark and cold echoed the sound of sparkling crystal glass being shattered to pieces over and over again, and Miguel buried his head in his knees.

You always hurt the ones you love. . .

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

There were few who were completely aware of the some of the subtle leisure pleasures that the rewarded of Zaibach were privileged with, and very few knew at all of the small secluded addition of the Vione tucked in the back corner of the vast fortress. It could have been compared indecently to a crude city pub, although a critical eye could have called it some less.

Nevertheless, it was a small reward the fortress had been blessed with, cuddled in the restricted upper halls from the majority, where the cold liquor was stored for the sparse celebrations when the commanders had a good day. It was opened to commissioned officers only, early in the morning and late at night following each shift rotation. Command insisted it was there solely for diplomatic forums and delegates that came aboard, but Dilandau figured they just wanted a place where they could find a good drink like every other warm-blooded man.

It was a long room with soft lights and a high counter running its length; meticulously clean, but still it always smelled like booze, dirt, and smoke. There was one other patron when Dilandau stalked in, an older lieutenant with his face down on a table and a bottle of a dirty colored liquor clenched possessively in his fist. When he looked up sluggishly and noticed the new arrival, he half fell from his chair then grabbed his drink and tottered out in a clumsy haste.

Dilandau crossed the room and slid onto a stool at the bar, muttering a curt order for something tall and dry. The tenant, an aged man with gray hair, cast a somewhat nervous sidelong glance at his customer, his eyes flitting up the armored uniform to the jeweled diadem upon the brow. Dilandau slid a hand of several bronze coins across the counter.

The captain was there regularly and the wisped-haired old man knew his place well enough. Avoiding Dilandau's garnet stare, he glanced fleetingly down along the other side of the counter.

"Your money is no good here, m'lord. . ." he muttered under his breath, but Dilandau had already repocketed the coins. On occasion, some of the rewarded enforced their own privileges.

The barkeep hastily rubbed down a fresh glass with the tail of his apron and filled it until it foamed. He slid the drink across the bar top to the awaiting soldier and then quickly began to try to look busy wiping down the back counter.

Dilandau drank back half the glass and then without looking up, extended a hand and beckoned soundlessly. He withdrew without a thanks as the shape of hastily rolled cigarette was obediently thrust into his fingers from behind the counter, and a match was struck and offered to the end of the butt.

Dilandau leaned over the top of the bar with the cigarette to his lips and dragged deep, tracing the rim of his mug with the tips of his gloved fingers. He didn't smoke of habit. It was a hypocrisy he had beaten out of half his men upon recruitment and it made his mouth taste like smoke and ash, but occasionally he found that the tobacco managed to do what the liquor couldn't; and what with no potential for bloodshed close at hand, it was sometimes all he could resort to to take his mind off troubling things.

The nicotine tainted smoke curled up around his head. Dilandau maneuvered the roll around in his fingers, tapping the ashes onto a used saucer beside him, while his other hand moved up and began tediously stroking the long scar that marred his right cheek in a restless, newly accustomed habit. He stared glassily down at his drink.

When had this happened?

Down in the shower. That's where this mess had begun, among the warm water and veils of silver steam. Or after? Afterwards, up in the assembly chamber pressing Miguel up to the wall, spurning threats against that illicit stare - No. Before that. So long before that. It had built and built and built. . .

Dilandau blinked hard and shook his head briskly, irritably pushing silver strands back from his face. He took another long drink and a deep drag, rolling the knots that had crept surreptitiously along his shoulders. This was too much right now. Too much all at once. First the god damn Dragon had fled from Asturia and Dilandau was getting restless; and now the general had ordered the conquest of Freid and they were mobilizing too slow than Dilandau felt comfortable with. He had precious little time for Miguel's revolting antics. This had to stop.

_'He can't force himself to stop loving you, sir.'_

Dilandau's mouth felt dry and he narrowed his eyes, leaning over the bar with the rim of his glass touching his lips. He flexed his fingers where encased under soft leather, the knuckles were sore and bruised from repeated assaults against flesh and bone earlier that evening. Calluses from his frustration.

Trying to beat it out with force hadn't worked; trying to intimidate it into recession hadn't worked. Nothing could smother that look from those blue eyes. It unnerved him.

Everything had been so damn easy before. Dilandau would give anything to have remained blind to Miguel's fixation. It still made him shudder when he remembered the feeling of the slayer's hand around his wrist the first time, the ardent warmth that had flashed in his look. Dilandau hated to think about how long Miguel had been harboring those muses prior.

That's not to say Dilandau hadn't known the other soldier's partiality to gender. He'd always been aware of Miguel's preference long before he had realized the brunette's infatuation towards him. Both Miguel and Shesta - the captain knew too well about the clandestine nights they lived off of in each other's beds behind the backs of the rest of the ship. He found it hard not to at times. They were so drunk in each other's bodies that sometimes they'd forget themselves to an extent that Dilandau would catch them whispering coquettishly in the middle of an open hall, passing intimate caresses, carrying on as inconspicuous as two melefs in a cropped pasture.

He hated finding himself so often playing chaperone at such times to cover for their careless need to indulge themselves. Once to his horror, he'd accidentally come across the two of them going at it in the empty assembly chamber one evening. In panic, he'd slammed and bolted the door from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of late night watches, and after the two slayers had frantically decencied themselves Dilandau had descended upon them in a exasperated rage and beaten them furiously for being so bold. They had both endured the punishment with commendable dignity for being caught under such circumstances as they had, although Shesta had gone white at Dilandau's frenzied threats of a court martial. Miguel had only reddened and avoided his stare.

However, despite the captain's hissing threats and rebuke, the two soldiers carried on in their affair without missing a beat - forcing Dilandau to incessantly find himself keeping the damn mess under wraps, while at the same time desperately attempting to keep such necessary intervenes as few and far between as he could possibly manage. Yet still, it was always a constant nag at the back of his mind. This torrid love affair they shared was too dangerous a liaison to be screwing around the damn Vione - Miguel and Shesta could both receive confinement or even dismissal if higher command ever found out they were queers.

That alone was only one of the reasons Dilandau continued to purposely neglect reporting the two Dragonslayers' offenses - he feared their forced separation from the team, but more so Dilandau harbored the fear that Miguel's dutiful affection might not be kept in check any longer if he was removed from his only source of alleviation. He imagined the only reason Miguel had remained reasonably well-behaved all this time, tolerable at least, was because Shesta was there to distract him.

. . . But now Shesta was losing Miguel's attention, and that attention was taunting fire. Dilandau didn't know how to bridle it anymore.

The lights around him seemed to dim, deepening the shadows that clung along the walls in a cool, comforting blanket. Dilandau's drink had dwindled to the far bottom of his glass and his gulps had become small sips with his lips fluttering along the rim. The foul taste of ash lined his mouth from the smoldering cigarette. He didn't feel very well.

_Miguel and his little toy. . ._

The corner of his eye twitched and the captain wrinkled his nose. It made his skin crawl when he thought about the revolting little trysts they had in the corners of the corridors and the shadows of the back rooms.

_The little boy's getting bored of his toy. Like a child with his face pressed up to the window glass, day after day, engrossed with the new sparkling and gleaming something he can't have. To touch it. Just to play with it once._

Dilandau brushed his fingers down his face, pulling at his marred cheek and teething the fine leather covering his wrist. With a tired motion, he dropped his hand and ran a finger absently along the top of the bar in a critical inspection for dirt or tarnish. His glove came off clean, as it always should.

His garnet eyes narrowed and he rubbed his finger against his thumb.

That there was no alternative in war was a scoff; the pitiful claim that you had to take what you could, when it came and from whoever offered it - was a sick, fabled mock. Dilandau wasn't a dog and he refused to scrounge. The Empire highly regarded its esteemed and were usually good to provide the necessary solace on call, but when they didn't there were always other ways to get around. Pretty golden skin and rolling curves spent the days cooking in the kitchens and scrubbing the dirt in the halls. There was no sparseness when you knew what you wanted.

If you were discreet; if you were subtle; and if you let them believe that consent was even an element, you could take what you needed, when you wanted. If you played nicely and with a moderate amount of amiable compassion, sometimes the comfort would even be readily offered the next time; which made things easier, far more quiet, and settled the fear of a marshal ever getting involved. It was all an easy routine he'd fallen quickly into a long time ago. The alternative repulsed him.

The captain shuddered slightly, and glowing cigarette embers tumbled onto the bar top. He brushed them away with a hollow flick of his hand.

When it all came down to it, Shesta and Miguel could screw around as much as they wanted. They could fuck each other senseless for all he cared and Dilandau would keep his mouth shut, as long as he wasn't pulled into it . . . but now he was further in this mess then he had ever wanted. All thanks to that frigging look and insatiable heat in Miguel's eyes.

Dilandau glanced down. His hand was trembling and the cigarette balanced between his fingers shook unsteadily. He sneered in spite of himself.

_Damn you, Lavariel._

From behind the bar, the gray-haired tenant spoke up with gentle wariness. "M'lord, sir, can't help noticin' your restlessness tonight," There was a careful pause. "An early retire an' you might sleep it off, if I may offer my humble advice, sir."

Dilandau shot him a deadly look, his lip curling back. "Did I imply for you to advise anything?"

No answer.

"Then shut up."

The man didn't say anything else and Dilandau lowered his head again. For a long moment he just stared down into his glass watching as the small remaining bit of liquor sloshed around the bottom of the mug. Several minutes past, then Dilandau dragged a hand back through his hair and shook his head. He snuffed out what was left of the smoldering roll in the saucer and pushed away his drink, the glass leaving a distinct water ring on the polished counter top. Rising from his stool, Dilandau turned and walked out of the room and away from the soft lights, his steps brisk and stiff, burdened with a long agonized, final resolve.

Because when all was said and done, he didn't think he had a choice anymore.


	3. Second Addressment

_He's going to kill me this time, lord to god, he's going to kill me, I'm dead. . ._

Miguel faltered. His feet wavered in their step and he paused, reaching a hand out to the corridor wall to brace himself and take another deep, nervous breath, not for the first time since he had started the trek down this side of the fortress.

It hadn't been a half-hour since Miguel had pulled himself from his cold solitude curled up in the back halls, still beaten and aching. He'd wanted absolutely nothing more than to crawl under his blankets and sleep away this pain. He had been making his way slowly back to the barracks when Gatty had crossed his path in the hall. The sandy-haired slayer had eyed him pitifully with a clear look that meant he hadn't known what the poor fool had done to warrant the abuse that blackened his body, but neither that he was going to pry. Instead, he had just approached him with words that had almost driven the little strength from Miguel legs: the captain was demanding to see him in his quarters. Immediately. Alone. The relayed message had almost seemed to reverberate Dilandau's fury and scathing threat in itself.

Oh god, not again. . . If the captain had held himself back enough earlier that day to still demand inflicting more punishment, then this second assault was going to be Dilandau's culmination - and Miguel doubted there would be any mercy this time. He could _feel_ it already, beating down on him, blackening and swelling across his skin.

It seemed somewhat foreign, however - for punishment or otherwise, it was a rare occurrence to be summoned to Dilandau's own quarters. Only Gatty and Shesta were ever called directly to the captain's private rooms. It was a rare distinction they held as Dilandau's two second-in-commands and Miguel had always envied Shesta's privilege, constantly keeping him up nights after an audience and badgering the blond about every detail. Miguel had never been in Dilandau's chambers before himself, and he couldn't help the almost excited skip that stumbled his tread, even despite the fear prickling his neck at what would be awaiting him when he got there.

Up one floor. Branch down the third hall. Round the corner and off the far west side corridor. The captain's rooms were a considerably inane distance from the slayers' barracks.

_Not close enough for anyone to hear your cries. . ._

Miguel tripped again. A knot tightened in his gut and his steps became smaller. The destination arrived too quickly, and when he finally stopped at the door he stared at it for a long time, a hand outstretched to the wall bracingly. Longing, fierce and colorful, hammered his heart against his chest not at all unexpectedly, although the familiarity and elation of the long harbored emotion was dwarfed swiftly with rising panic.

_Too far from the infirmary ward. . ._

Closing his eyes, he ran his fingers gently down the cold metal of the door. They trembled, fluttering over the smooth surface as if each digit were battling vainly in one last groping search for something warm and solacing.

_Nowhere to run._

The door slid away. Almost instantly it felt as if he was hit with a blast of stabbing cold air that sucked his lungs dry. Miguel's feet moved automatically, pulled in by themselves.

It was a wide, spacious but elegantly furnished sitting room, with a small bed chamber and bath off the side. There were no windows and the place was dark except for a familiar hum of a gas lamp in the far corner, turned down low, filling the room with a cold looking light. Under any different circumstances Miguel would have been living a dream at that moment, but instead he forced himself to keep his eyes hung low and remained far by the door as it slid closed at his heels.

Ahead of him in the center of the room was a figure sitting hunched in a high back chair. Silver sheens of hair seemed to illuminate him in the dark. The captain was staring glassily at an opened wine bottle perched beside him on a table and neglected to look up from his silent brood, although Miguel thought he saw the pale hand twitch around the arm rest when he walked in. The albino's expression looked as though he'd been drinking, but the bottle appeared hardly tasted. The red armored jacket was flung over the back of a far chair and he sat simply in a sleeveless, soft lavender shirt. Miguel had always liked that shirt. He had always thought Dilandau looked nice in the color.

There was a very long length of silence. Miguel stood absolutely still, his eyes cast down, not daring to breathe. A moment passed, and there was a dreadful, chilling break in the still air at when Dilandau muttered outloud in a voice that sounded tired, but steady and completely sincere:

"I should have just turned you over to the Strategos from the very beginning."

It was a cold, stinging remark that struck deep and hurt Miguel more than any blow he'd been dealt yet. He clenched his hands at his sides and stared down at his feet as he felt Dilandau's scalding gaze turn slowly upon him. It seared his skin, penetrating under the hooded lids of his eyes and staring into Miguel's head. The slayer couldn't meet it. He didn't think he could look once more into those burning embers without breaking down.

God, he wished Dilandau would just hit him. He just wanted Dilandau to hit him so hard that he wouldn't be able to feel this atrocious pain.

Darting shaking glances from behind his dark bangs, Miguel watched nervously as the captain rose from his chair. For someone so young, he seemed to pull himself up with great effort; reluctance even. Crossing the room, the captain stopped in front of him and paused, as if waiting for something, then suddenly he swung his hand around and struck the side of Miguel's face and whipped his head back. Miguel stumbled but caught himself on his feet, grimacing fiercely at the sting that raced through his cheek, and when he turned back his eyes were forcefully pulled upwards until he met the garnet gaze straight on, heatedly and breathless.

Dilandau seemed to pale for a second and then flush, tensing. His stare appraised Miguel for a further moment before his eyes narrowed and a sneer flickered across his face.

"That's what I hate about you -" he hissed out in the dark; a strange, tired, scathing tone. "You're so god damn _tenacious._ "

Miguel blinked. The slayer didn't even have a chance to comprehend what was happening: when leaning forward, the captain linked his hands around the slayer's neck, and then Dilandau Albatou kissed him hard.

Miguel's world exploded.

 

 

He should have had another drink.

As he closed over Miguel's lips, Dilandau's body gave a cold instinctive shudder. He felt the slayer pull back in blatant surprise at the sudden unprompted contact, gasping into his mouth; but the captain held him rigidly to the spot, refusing to allow him proper time to register exactly what was happening. He thrust past his teeth, pressing his tongue to the back palate of Miguel's mouth with a choking ferocity, making sure he had every bit of his attention.

Then as abruptly as he'd leaned in, Dilandau tore away - breaking the kiss and pulling his head back quickly as Miguel seemed to try deftly to follow his lips. With the sudden rush of air that flooded between them once more, the brunette stumbled on his feet. The captain met Miguel's gaze hesitantly as blue eyes tried to regain focus, blinking and caught in an bewildered stare as Dilandau watched the soldier try to gain quick, labored gasps. Miguel's mouth formed a meager sound, an efforted, inaudible question and express of disbelief that shaped on his fluttering lips.

Swallowing, Dilandau drew himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders. His mouth pulled into a tight, thin line.

"One night,"

Miguel blinked.

"I'm going to give you _one_ night, Lavariel," Dilandau said slowly, never leaving Miguel's eyes and managing somehow to keep his voice from sounding hoarse as he tried to form the words that came out as strange and unnatural as they sounded in his head. "Satisfy whatever this sick fantasy is that you're indulging - _and then it's over_ \- because god, Miguel, I don't know what the hell else to do with you."

The last remark came out distinctly underlined with desperation, sounding weak to his own ears, and Dilandau's eyes flashed a dark bloody hue in the lamp light. His hands fisted at his sides as he grappled to regain ground on his crumbling composure. "You get this filth out of your head and that _look_ out of your eyes, and then _that's it._ No more of this crazy shit."

Miguel seemed to stand in incredulous shock for several long moments. His mouth opened a small bit and his eyes widened, looking like they were searching Dilandau's face, inside his head for comprehension as he hung on each word. The air around them seemed to ripple with a new sort of anxious tension. The room felt suddenly too small, too confining, and the brown-haired slayer too close; Dilandau took an unconscious step back and was surprised, almost unsettled, as Miguel matched his retreat with a closing stride. The slayer came up to him slowly. His steps were light and careful as if walking across a patch of thin ice, and his eyes gave off a clouded, misty kind of expression.

Abruptly, Dilandau found himself on guard. He hadn't expected Miguel to be so bold so quickly, and he felt strangely unnerved that the slayer hadn't spoken at all yet. Miguel's silence itself was almost as shocking and defiant as when he then reached out slowly and suddenly Dilandau felt a hand on his arm; the electricity of the contact startling him as the boy's fingers stilled on the captain's wrist, grasping a little, like they were trying to gain tangible proof that Dilandau was really there. Wide blue eyes questioned him tentatively.

"One. Night." Dilandau repeated firmly.

There was another pause and Miguel started slightly as if almost to back away, then stood still again. One step back, two steps forward; pause once more. The boy seemed to be having a hard time breathing now. Dilandau braced himself, unwilling to be the first to move this time and waiting uneasily as Miguel leaned forward bit by bit with the pitiful determination of a field mouse.

The kiss was anything but explosive. Miguel's lips quivered and shook on every breath, and for a long time they seemed to just dance, only brushing Dilandau's mouth. Scared, nervous; waiting for a trap. Completely unbelieving. Until finally they aborted their cautiousness and molded over his mouth, moving over Dilandau's tongue with smooth velvet heat.

The sensation was uncomfortable to him and spurred an acute feeling of being out-of-place. Miguel was a good half-year older than him and stood only an inch or so under the captain's own distinctive height. Dilandau didn't like kissing someone as tall as him - it made him feel strangely self-conscience and discontented, like an unarticulated challenge or threat to his authority.

Once again Miguel seemed surprised initially, but soon became more sure of himself this time, and unlike before, Dilandau didn't need to hold him. Instead of pulling away, Miguel leaned in more, albeit appearing to move slow and cautiously, but still coming close enough to press lightly against him. In an instant the soldier's body tensed, stilled, then sagged all at once like a puppet whose strings had been cut, falling loose against the albino like a doll.

It was an insatiably strange feeling to have Miguel so close, feel the heat radiating off his body, having his hands around his hips, and his tongue delving through his mouth. Dilandau shifted on his feet unsteadily as Miguel angled his body, straightening and curving into the captain's stance and causing Dilandau to instinctively draw back. His hands pushed away on Miguel's waist and he distinctly felt the soldier withdraw very slightly, flinching.

That hurt him, Dilandau realized. He'd almost forgotten the vicious assault he'd delivered upon the slayer earlier that day, and Miguel was still in obvious pain although seemed trying not to show it. In a strange way it felt good to cause Miguel the small discomforts; an odd sense of placement that urged Dilandau that perhaps this wasn't extending too far beyond his control and dominance.

It was disconcerting though. Being touched by Miguel was at the same time both so similar and different from being touched by a handmaiden or a whore. Both a familiar but disturbingly new sensation, and he found himself toying a horrifying curiosity that kindled with each fleeting brush of finger tips and lips - but it was smothered suddenly by a far greater, overwhelming surge of irrational fear that seared him like a hot blinding poker.

Dilandau blanched.

Jesus, what was he doing. . . This was different than slipping behind Folken's eye and joining in on Gatty and Dallet's off-duty poker games in the evenings. It wasn't like allowing Miguel and Shesta the freedom to dare the odds and screw in an empty bunk room and then neglecting to report it to the Strategos. God, he could get court martialled for this. . .

This was _wrong._

For a moment he was seized by a torrent wave of fear and shame. Bristling, he barely caught himself as his body jerked as if to wrench away, but Miguel's hand around him held him with little to no force to the spot. Dilandau furiously hardened his resolve, but his head was spinning now, alive with newly awakened alarm.

He held himself rigid as Miguel kissed him softly, straining against the desire to recoil as foreign hands trailed down his arms and dropped slowly over his thin shirt. They halted just as they began to explore underneath the fabric and tensed. Very slowly, Miguel's lips broke away and he pulled back a fraction, his face flushed with heat. Dilandau met his eyes as the slayer appraised him furtively, feeling Miguel's fingers still grazing lightly over the ivory skin of his stomach, waiting for permission.

Somehow atop the confusing disarray of alarm, warmth, and alcohol, there was a vague denotation of consent. He saw Miguel blink and draw in a quick breath, as if just suddenly realizing to the extent Dilandau had meant in his offer, and with a tight moan Miguel pressed back in to kiss Dilandau again, fervently this time. His hands moved with far more aggression than before and his fingers took their privilege to caress beneath Dilandau's shirt, growing more and more bold as they mapped the fair flesh. They appeared to rush themselves as they pulled the garment up over Dilandau's head, as if afraid the invitation would be retracted at any moment.

The flurry of movement took Dilandau unprepared. He was caught in a fast in-drawn breath and all he could do was respond impassively as Miguel nudged him firmly but not forcefully up against the wall. He grimaced as the Dragonslayer cuddled in his pelvis while branding his lips with a new feverish passion, greedily stealing the heat from the albino's body.

Gods, even in the privacy of his own chambers this was more humiliating than he'd imagined. . .

_Make him stop -_

Dilandau's breaths came in erratic lung fills of air. He stoically avoided Miguel's ardent gaze as he allowed the slayer to slowly undress him, and took an odd, detached notice of the delicate way Miguel pared off his clothes. The brunette's hands worked skillfully and diligent; hurriedly working apart the top neck of his own jacket while his other played on the hem of Dilandau's pants, tugging and urging exposure to the crisp evening air. In the end, the only article the fingers neglected to remove was the jeweled diadem from Dilandau's brow - as if to articulate their deeply founded respect for the power they were being privileged to touch.

The first feeling of the cold air and shadows caressing his bare legs brought another grimace and jump, and Dilandau groped the wall for purchase, screaming soundlessly into Miguel's mouth.

_\- no this is wrong wrong get him off me -_

The knot in his chest tightened, and Dilandau flinched when he felt Miguel seize his hands and raise them to his own half-unfastened uniform. The Dragonslayer pleaded wordlessly against his lips for the captain to take up the task and tentatively Dilandau obliged, fumbling nervously as Miguel helped lead his fingers in the chore, showing him how. Dilandau had never undressed a man; it was different than pulling apart a corset or unlacing a bodice, and he was oddly ashamed as he felt himself redden at his awkward, newfound show of inexperience.

In the wane, hissing glow of the lamp, he was caressed with an exhilarating mix of stabbing cold from being trapped up to the wall and the raw heat of Miguel's body against him. Gentle hands maneuvered over his flesh, down his waist, along his thigh, and with every new shock Dilandau instinctively fought back, pushing and hurting Miguel in return with immature, child-like logic.

_\- no get him off Jesus stop stop it get off -_

Touches along his bare skin sent waves of hot, uninvited sensation through the albino's limbs, and Dilandau felt a bitter stab of inward betrayal as a small involuntary moan escaped his lips without permission. He felt Miguel weaken and pull responsively inward, enraptured at the noise.

No, this wasn't fair. . . This wasn't right at all. It was abominable that he could be provoked so easily by a catalyst that was so unspeakably wrong. Dilandau could feel everything down to the merest shiver that jolted along Miguel's skin. It was a nightmare.

He made a small sound of half-hearted resistance when the brunette took his hands up in his own and circled them around his neck, as if in desperate need for Dilandau's touch, the feeling of the captain's skin on his own. The movement diminished whatever remaining space there had been between them, and enthused, Miguel pressed in further: holding him firmly to explore the curves and muscles of Dilandau's body with an eager thirst; knowing him as no other of his charges had ever dreamed.

_\- make him stop this is wrong stop stop stop STOP STOP!_

With a low moan Miguel pulled away and swept his lips over his lord's neck in a newborn fervor. The touch was warm and delicately grazing on his skin, leaving Dilandau trembling and gasping at a new aching warmth and forcing him to cling to the other soldier for support in a convulsive grip. It seemed to encourage the Dragonslayer on to tenderly teethe the lobe of the albino's ear then descend down, mouthing inaudible words of desire against the hollow of his throat. Soft hands stole away his heat, and something inside Dilandau screamed at this invasion of his body. It strangled him and he clawed for breath, scrambling in the black dark behind his closed lids.

He couldn't push back anymore to hurt the boy in rebut - not with Miguel's fingers crawling over his flesh and his lips somehow discovering more and more new little places of forbidden, unwelcomed pleasure that prickled Dilandau's skin and chilled him to the core. He shuddered once, fiercely, overwhelmed from the height he was raised to and then sent spinning downward in this dizzy, rolling wave of white heat and inadmissible thought.

Yet despite the electricity of the privilege he was being allowed, Miguel never forgot his place. He seemed to explore with a careful kind of boldness, just enough to learn what Dilandau reacted to and how, and withdrawing elsewhere when the venture was rejected - after all, he was still one of Dilandau's men, Dilandau's charges; and as if keeping himself in check, his manner remained submissively undertoned.

The captain relished in a brief, blissful interlude as Miguel toyed with the silver dog tag hanging from around the albino's neck; the slayer traversing Dilandau's chest and pausing amidst his rapture momentarily to gain his breath and admire the tiny engraved disc with reverencing fingers. The gesture strengthened Dilandau's weakening resolve, enforcing the former authority once more that had been perilously waning so quickly before in the dark. Regardless what privileges were given, what exchanges were ever made, Miguel was _his_ \- it was a fact that Dilandau kept burned in his mind like a smoldering brand, and was the only comfort to the apprehension that laced his mind.

So when all of a sudden Miguel pulled away with an eager breath and made to drop to his knees, Dilandau's restraint fled like a terrified animal.

His eyes shot open and he bit out a loud exclamation of surprise and panic, swinging his hand forward and striking Miguel viciously hard before instantly wrenching him back to his feet. In one swift, turbulent motion, he swung him around and threw the slayer violently against the side of the wall.

Oh god, not like that. . . That's not what he'd meant. . .

Dilandau had offered Miguel one night, relenting to yield himself to him in whatever touches or intimacy he'd insisted - but not like _that._ That breached a gap between intimacy and violation, and Dilandau was rare to allow his weekly whores go as far.

He stared at the other boy, eyes constricted to red points, feral and unblinking. Pinned up against the wall, Miguel panted beneath Dilandau's steel restraint, his chest heaving at the albino's sudden violent response. He stared back at the captain in confusion, a heated tinge on his lips, and for the briefest second Dilandau saw the blue eyes flicker with a horribly pained look of betrayal. It made Dilandau flare inside, as if accosted at Miguel's nerve to flash him such an expression at that moment, and in an instant later the insulting gaze was passed over with fright as Dilandau dug his nails into the Dragonslayer's shoulders.

And like always, _that look._ Dilandau's eyes widened.

_Smother it. . . Smother it OFF. . ._

He was only barely cognizant as his hands were suddenly at Miguel's neck, wrapped around his throat, thumbs pressuring against the ridge.

_. . .snap snap snap. . ._

And just as fast, Miguel pushed back against him, frantically, his hands grabbing Dilandau's wrists and wildly pressing them away, his face stricken in panic. There was barely audible, stifled cry.

Dilandau blinked and abruptly broke back. A wave of cold sweat broke out across his brow while Miguel slumped, panting. Dilandau stared at him with a drawn, vacant look, then closed his eyes. Trembling, he braced his hands against the wall on either side of shaken slayer and swore outloud, over and over again under his breath in a rapid, muttering hiss, drowning out the dark and the heat and the cold all together.

God, this was such a frigging mess. . .

A tremor shook him. He felt too hot and at the same time he was freezing, shivering and sweating from both, muddled with swirling thoughts and sensations that thoroughly disgusted him and weakened him on his legs. Irrational, unfocused instinct shrieked, ringing in his ears to break away.

One night. Just _one_ night.

God, but he had tried to -

No. It was a matter of pride; dominance; control - and that shifted all manner of such power unfavorably. There was not enough toleration Dilandau would ever possess to possibly grant the permission to be lead so yielding into such a depth of blind, reeling sensation; he could never lose himself to that much heat, surrender that much unnatural vulnerability. Not like this. No, promise or no promise, he refused to allow himself to be pleasured to that extent by Miguel.

_Just one night._

Something churned sickly in his gut.

Rid the slayer of the musings and be done with it. A last, grappling resort - and either way, Dilandau was left nothing but his own cursed initiative.

God, he wasn't drunk enough for this. . .

Slowly, he lowered his hands from their safe purchase to the wall, twitching and white knuckled, and he opened his eyes. The unsteady garnet stare was met with curious hesitance, and Miguel blinked nervously, his blue gaze glittering in the dim light. Dilandau's mouth had suddenly never felt so dry.

_. . .should have had another drink. . ._

Taking the slayer by complete surprise, Dilandau leaned in sharply of his own accord. A small, tremulous shiver of excitement immediately rolled across the brunette's skin at his touch, and Dilandau felt Miguel slack loosely and draw in a quick, feathered breath as the albino pressed him roughly up to the wall. Dilandau's grip was tight, threatening, and not at all affectionate, but nevertheless the other boy seemed to immediately accept and urge the contact, grimacing lightly but still curving into the captain's figure.

Miguel's head moved forward searchingly and Dilandau managed to avoid his lips the first time, but not the second, and once more the unfamiliar taste invaded his mouth before he was able to retreat. Reluctantly, he forced his lips in a downward trek below Miguel's jaw, barely touching the flesh but evoking enough of a distraction for that warm, terrifying mouth. He felt the slayer shiver, arch closer, and let out a chorus of soft moans rippled with ardent, insatiable pleasure as the albino grazed his skin. It was hot and spiced with sweat under Dilandau's lips. The only time he threw firmness behind the kiss was when he felt Miguel flinch very slightly as his mouth ran over a blackened bruise that the captain had beaten out with his own hands only hours before. In need of the authority; wanting to hurt Miguel back a last time before Dilandau condemned himself.

Make it fast. Be done with it.

A heart beat rang in his ears, although he wasn't completely sure whether it was Miguel's or his own. Above him, the Dragonslayer drew in a deep, awaiting breath, and Dilandau wavered for a moment -

_. . .should have had another drink, should have downed the whole damn bottle. . ._

\- then with crumbling resolve, he screwed his eyes closed and let himself sink to his knees.

The air was split with Miguel's choked gasp. His legs seemed to give out from under him and he crumpled half over, grabbing the captain's shoulders to brace himself, digging his fingers deep into Dilandau's skin so tightly it bruised. Through the dark silence of the room, the Dragonslayer moaned his lord's name in shivering and long awaited ecstasy.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

What time was it. . .

Dilandau listened for the call of the hour, laying awake and alert, unmoving on the mattress. With no windows in his chambers, the only light was cast from the lamp in other room. It writhed over the floor from around the corner of the doorway, but did nothing to distinguish the night from day.

The sheets hung in loose folds over the side of the bed frame and offered little insolation from the draft that swept through the emptiness of the room. Dilandau was barely aware of the chill though. Spread out over him, Miguel slept on in silence. The slayer had long already become a dead weight on top of him, and the heat from the soldier's bare skin felt like it was scalding Dilandau's flesh. Mere thoughts of the previous evening caught and trapped the breath up through his lungs, making his chest feel as if it were collapsing inward.

The memory alone shook him. It had been fast and mercifully brief, but had felt like an eternity on his knees with Miguel's hands crawling through his hair and clutching Dilandau's shoulders with small convulsive sounds from deep in this throat. When he'd pulled away the Dragonslayer had practically collapsed to the floor, and shaken, Dilandau had taken refuge in the few meager moments away from Miguel's touch before the slayer had struggled back to his feet, out of breath and sweating.

Pulling Dilandau up, Miguel had slowly but unwaveringly maneuvered him backwards into the other room and pressed him down flat on the bed. He'd trailed fluttering kisses gingerly along Dilandau's mouth and let his tongue dart out to sample his own flavor that had lingered on the captain's lips, sweeping his hands down his waist, up the inside of his leg. Cinnamon brown hair had mixed with thin silver strands, and at that moment Dilandau had gone rigidly cold, as if just realizing at that very instant of what he'd obligated himself to.

Desperately, he'd tried to push back in a weak effort of resistance, but the brunette had taken gentle force to persistently press him back down. Dilandau had never felt so defenseless in all his life like he had trapped beneath the slayer's eyes and lost in the terror of Miguel's fingers as they had worked his body through; twisting deep and without explanation, seeming unintentionally cruel in their violation of his body.

Singing gently of pending discomfort and laced promises that it would pass, the Dragonslayer had kissed Dilandau thoroughly once more, fiercely, as if almost in apology: it had been a tender gesture born out of an attempt to comfort and calm, though regrettably lost on the captain. As Miguel had grabbed his hips, Dilandau had swore outloud and in a rush of blind, terrified panic he'd gone to push Miguel away; not caring about promises and forgetting all obligations, only desperate to be done with what was happening that very second. But the albino had acted too slow and before he could rush to shove Miguel away at the last moment, Dilandau's body had bucked at a startling explosion of new, terrifying sensations that had sent him spiraling and his hands grappling for an anchor.

Miguel had been exceedingly slow and gentle, barely rumpling the bed sheets - although his compassion had gone completely unnoticed or appreciated. There had been nothing the slayer could have done that would have had registered as kindness in Dilandau's lost comprehension. It had been so horrifyingly unfamiliar. Flushes of cold and heat had wracked his mind and sent him spinning. A hoarse noise had risen from the depths of his throat, and above him Miguel had only whispered soothing tones and petted him as Dilandau had writhed in the assault, feeling like something inside him had exploded. His body had arched up of its own violation, craving the warmth and touch, while his insides had felt as if they were dislodging themselves, trying desperately to get away.

He would have given anything at that moment to have had been able to tear away from Miguel's sweating skin tangled all around him, away from Miguel's crystalline eyes that had bored into his skull with so much unbelievable softness. Anything, to have had stopped from letting himself enjoy something so unspeakably wrong.

Dilandau remembered vaguely of Miguel hovering over him unmoving for several minutes afterwards, perhaps saying something, or touching him, he couldn't recall - until finally the slayer had fallen asleep. Left alone to fight in the dark, Dilandau had been unable to think about anything other than the soreness and throbbing and terrifying warmth. He'd let his eyes close for a single moment against his will and the next thing he remembered was waking up with no idea how long he had slept. The only clock was in the adjoining sitting room, and so Dilandau laid awake, staring at the ceiling and holding his breath in fear of missing the announcing chimes that would finally call end to this nightmare.

Gods, if he had to continue to lay here for hours still. . .

Miguel's head was cuddled under Dilandau's chin and his breath hot on his chest. The soldier's brown hair, strewn and tussled, tickled his jaw when the boy breathed. Sometime during the night one of Miguel's hands had slipped around Dilandau's waist and was now a minor discomfort as it pressed up, cradling the small of his back, while the other had managed to entwine itself in the captain's own. Dilandau could feel the steady beat of Miguel's heart vibrating down through his chest and shaking him to the core. Every breath, every pulse, every tremor and shift - god, Dilandau could feel _everything._

He tried not to breath and his mouth became dry. Miguel's flavor still lingered unwelcome on his lips - it was a cruel, lasting reminder of what Dilandau had allowed himself to do and he closed his eyes and tried to forget the sound of Miguel breathing his name in rippling moans. It screamed in his ear, barreling against the back of his head and raising shivers over his skin.

Jesus, he had to get out of this bed - get him _off_ -

Suddenly, the weight on top of him shifted. Dilandau opened his eyes and came face to face with a blue cobalt gaze. For a moment, Miguel stared at him as if trying to remember where he was, then his eyes widened and a brief second of fear passed over his face. There was a tension, an almost fearful recoil, and then as if the memories of earlier seemed to wash over him, Dilandau felt Miguel relax and loosen, his eyes misting over.

A silence hung thick in the dark for a long time, and Dilandau was seized by a cold sweat when Miguel reached out and slowly ran a hand down over his face. He closed his eyes again and tried to sink deeper into the pillow as the slayer grazed his fingers along his skin, tracing his jaw and reimmersing himself in exploring the curves of his neck. Eventually, Miguel leaned in to coax his lips into a kiss that Dilandau shared but did not return.

For a while Miguel just laid there and touched him in a soft, light sort of way, trailing feather kisses along his face and delicately down his nose, never speaking a word. It was the silence that killed him. It was deafening. Dilandau shifted nervously in the blankets as the brunette cuddled up over his chest, staring at him with glimmering eyes that Dilandau refused to meet, keeping his eyes closed or fixed at the ceiling. He tried to refrain from curbing upwards in crave of the touch when Miguel's lips played behind his ear and tickled the hair on the soft part of his neck - the contact was brushing, sensual, almost playful in a way that made the captain's head swim with strange colors. This kind of tender, intimate affection was completely foreign and unwelcome to him, and like earlier that night, Dilandau grew plaintively bitter once more at his body's eager acquiescence to the sensation.

A breath rose sharply in his throat and Dilandau went rigid as he felt Miguel's knee slide down the inside of his leg, and he was gripped by chilling horror that prickled his skin at the thought of the slayer deciding he could go for another round. Immediately his breath picked up in anxious gasps, and without a second thought or hesitance, his hands flew up to shove Miguel away in a frantic resolve to end it all right there and then, promise or no promise; but just then the silence was torn by the piercing chime of the clock in the next room.

Dilandau froze. He felt Miguel's fingers stop dead on his chest, and the blue gaze dilated as the tone split through the dark like a cold blade.

_. . .one. . ._

_. . .two. . ._

_. . .three. . ._

_. . .four. . ._

A flood of desperate apprehension traced Dilandau's spine. Neither he or Miguel dared to breathe as the rings carried around the corner of the doorway on the dark.

_Five._

The chimes fell silent on the final call. Dilandau felt like he'd been slammed into a wall, the air knocked from his lungs and making him lay motionless for a second to catch his breath. Dawn had broke outside. If he were to step outside his chambers the early daylight would be shining through the port windows in the corridor.

Dilandau blinked and met the drawn stare of the other soldier above him with an ebbing, fiery gaze. Miguel's eyes widened. The hold around Dilandau's fingers tightened, and before he could react the boy leaned down and suddenly Miguel was kissing him again.

His manner was more firm than it had been earlier, laced with an uncontrolled fervor and almost fierce desperation as he closed his lips over Dilandau's mouth in a wordless, frantic plead that bruised the captain's lips in its articulateness. Miguel pressed his body down against his lord's, pulling Dilandau's torso upwards with the hand around his waist. The albino flushed, then in a split moment of comprehension, his eyes narrowed.

_NO. NO MORE._

It was a solid, unadulterated command that raged inwardly through his head, and it was all that he needed. With a low growl in the back of his throat, Dilandau pressed back down against the mattress, turning his head and breaking the kiss in one clear, wordless, and absolute rejection. Miguel stared down at him, panting and trembling as Dilandau's mouth pulled into a thin line. The captain braced his hands against the other boy's chest, and with a firm, resolute movement, he pushed Miguel off from on top of him and slowly slid out of the bed.

For a second when he stood up he felt dizzy and stumbled slightly on the floor, wavering a little on his legs as they were brushed with the open air. The awkwardness was a small price though, in return for the grand relief of having nothing around him and to be touched by absolutely nothing except the chill. Dilandau breathed deeply, listening as the soldier behind tried to catch his breath, and he felt Miguel's eyes bore into the back of his head. For the first time since his arrival hours ago the night before, the slayer's voice broke through the darkness in a small, frail tone.

"Lord Dilandau. . ."

"Go back to your quarters, Miguel," Dilandau said firmly, crossing a short way into the other room; he was in the slayer's sight still, but it felt satisfying being able to establish just the small distance.

Still a little unbalanced, he bent over to pull on his pants where they laid discarded on the floor, moving slow and trying to ignore the slight shake in his hands. He slid his shirt over his head and pushed the silver fringe out of his eyes, then snatched up the clothes that remained, stepped shortly once more into other room and tossed the uniform onto the bed; never meeting Miguel's gaze for more than a fraction of second, but long enough to catch the plaintive, mixed emotion in the blue eyes as they stared after him.

The floor was cold under his feet as Dilandau crossed the length of the sitting room. The gas lamp in the corner was still burning low from last night. He faltered every moment or so, finding it a strangely uncomfortable maneuver, walking; something so effortless and ordinary suddenly seemed so hard, taking a step straining. Limbs and muscles opposed the motion, arguing with complaints of unfamiliar tightness and soreness.

There was a rustle of clothing and the floor boards creaked in the room behind. Dilandau turned his head and watched Miguel stagger slowly out of the bedroom dressed with his jacket draped over his arm. The Dragonslayer approached slowly and stopped a few steps away from him, wavering slightly. He appeared both flushed and pale at the same time, and he stared at Dilandau with a glassy, empty look. Dilandau took an almost hesitant step back from him and then dropped his eyes and crossed his arms. He shook his head carefully.

"No more of this crazy shit, Miguel," His voice was thin and underlined with a distinct threat. Quiet, as if fearful of being overheard.

Miguel downcast his eyes and his face became veiled beneath layers of shadows from the dim light. When he spoke, his voice was soft and hollow.

"Was it really that awful?"

Dilandau's temple twitched. Something tightened in his gut and he knit his brow. Miguel looked up slowly and Dilandau met his eyes with a silent answer, and through the dark he saw Miguel wince at the coldness of the unspoken words. The Dragonslayer nodded slowly, his expression pained, and grimaced as he gave a very forced half-smile that flickered on and off his face. He looked almost apologetic.

There was an uncomfortable length of silence as Miguel stared at him jadedly, his knuckles white-tipped and strained. Then suddenly in a single stride, the soldier closed whatever respectable distance there had been between them, and once again Dilandau found himself facing the Dragonslayer with mere inches between. Surprised, he drew back fast and stumbled as he backed right up against the wall, his eyes narrowing as Miguel raised a hand towards the side of his face. Dilandau's arm shot out instinctively, seizing the soldier's wrist and curling his fingers around tightly as he stared Miguel down with a nervous, but warning garnet gaze.

For a second, Miguel predictably faltered. Then his expression seemed to harden and with a determined, longing look that flashed across his eyes, he dared to push against the albino's restraint. Dilandau flinched as the fingers grazed his face. He squirmed anxiously at the touch, reddening slightly, and as he went to shove the Dragonslayer back Miguel took him by surprise by pressing in and kissing his mouth lightly. Free from obligation this time, Dilandau let out a short, startled exclamation and instantly his hand whipped around and slapped Miguel squarely on the face, hard. The slayer staggered, cradling his blistered cheek, and the captain shoved him away and wiped his invaded lips with the back of his hand, seething at the offense.

"Go back to your quarters, Miguel," he said again. There was no room for objection.

"Yes sir."

Dilandau's hand pressed back on the door gage and the entry slid open with a hiss. There was a momentary illumination of the room from the light in the outside corridor, and he stared down at the floor as Miguel walked out without a word. The door slid shut behind him and the room fell dark again.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

In the first bunk room off the north hall, a lone Dragonslayer waited in the dark. Shesta sat at the foot of his bed, his feet dangling over the edge of the top bunk, his hands clasped over his knees. The other four young soldiers that shared the room had already headed down to the mess hall. The tiny blond slayer had remained behind.

He wrung his hands and stared at the clock mounted across the room. It was past seven already.

Last night he'd laid awake in his bunk and waited for the sound of Miguel's steps to enter the room and slide into the bunk beneath him, but the brunette slayer had never come in. Shesta had woke in the morning at the very first rays of wane light filtering through the window ports and leaned over the side of his bunk at the bed below. Miguel hadn't been there and his sheets had been undisturbed. Miguel had never come to bed.

A crease of unsettling distress had raced up Shesta's spine. The others hadn't given the chestnut slayer's absence much heed though; Dallet had only waggled his eyebrows, tossing a comment that Miguel must have had "a busy night", and smirked in a suggestive way that hadn't helped ease Shesta's anxiety at all.

He'd only seen Miguel briefly last night; just glimpsing him as he'd seen him part with Gatty on one of the lower decks. Shesta had seen the bruises that had blackened the brunette's face, the blood on his lip, the stagger in his step; Shesta had known what had provoked it, and he'd known when Miguel had turned and headed slowly up the corridor where he'd been going.

It scared him. The blond slayer realized how serious the situation had become, but he had no idea for how long and how far the captain would be able to retain his fragile control over the matter - or what Dilandau would do when he finally reached the end of his temperance.

The clock ticked off the quarter hour. Shesta dutifully tried to convince himself that it was nothing; that Miguel had simply fallen asleep in a hall somewhere or perhaps decided to assist the night sentry on the first deck last minute - but Shesta knew better. Miguel was far too predictable, and Shesta himself would have been informed if he had taken an extra shift. More so, Miguel would have at least seen to searching the blond out and sharing if he would be absent, so as not to make Shesta fret. He'd always been very reliable in assuring him that way.

But last night Miguel had never come to him with a forewarning, and the tension had built in the back of Shesta's head through the night and early morning. The clock ticked the time away and he leaned over and buried his face in his hands, but just then there was a soft hiss of the door sliding away, and Shesta threw his head up as Miguel walked into the room.

He should have been relieved; he should have run to Miguel and kissed him; at the very least, the cold knot of tension in Shesta's chest should have loosened finally at the return of the other soldier. Instead, the knot tightened as the slayer entered the room.

Miguel's jacket hung from his arm and his brown hair fell strewn over his eyes which stared numbly across to room in a blank, glassy gaze. The way he moved as he walked in caused Shesta's mind to lace with a dreadful apprehension. Carefully, Shesta hopped down off his bunk although made no move to cross the floor. He stared at Miguel penetratingly.

"Where have you been?" he finally spoke, his voice very small and quiet, the words escaping his mouth on a breath.

Miguel blinked, as if just realizing Shesta was in the room. His eyes were glazed and cast with a cloudy sheen.

"Sitting. . ." he murmured softly after a long moment, looking unfocused and swaying a little on his feet. Shesta waited but Miguel didn't offer any more explanation.

"You never came in last night. . ." he pressed, swallowing nervously and trying not to sound accusing. "Where were you?"

"Lord Dilandau . . . summoned me to his quarters. . ."

"I know. I saw you heading down the west corridor," Shesta paused a moment and pressed his lips into a thin line, discontentedly aware of the distance in the other slayer's voice. "Why didn't you come to your bunk last night, Miguel?"

Miguel was silent for a long time. His mouth parted, hovering on unspoken words, and the knot in Shesta's chest wrenched as he waited out the silence. It didn't even look like Miguel's crystal blue eyes were meeting Shesta's gaze, instead staring right through him.

"I made love to Lord Dilandau last night."

Shesta couldn't have been more rocked had Miguel struck him. The words hardly articulated in his head, slamming through his ears with a force that felt like someone had punched him in the gut. In an abrupt instant, the air was driven from his lungs and his body went cold.

_". . .w- what?"_

Miguel blinked again numbly and wavered. "He hit me. . ." He spoke very slowly and hushed, his words carefully shaped as if he was trying hard to remember something. "And then he kissed me and . . . said I could have _one night._ " His expression remained blank and Shesta could feel his heart beating in his ears. Miguel's voice turned to a murmur, as if he were speaking to himself under his breath. "One night to end it, and then it had to be over. . ."

He didn't elaborate further. It didn't matter. He didn't need to.

Time felt like it had jolted to a violent stop. Shesta gaped and stumbled slightly, his heart wrenching as each breath tore with ravage down his throat.

"I - I don't believe you -" he stammered in a stifled whisper.

"If you kissed me you'd taste him," Miguel whispered, and for a moment Shesta saw actual emotion flicker in his eyes. A tip of red darted between his mouth, moistening his lips. "He tastes like dry wine. . ."

An ache swelled in Shesta's chest, and he shook his head numbly. "No - I don't believe you, Miguel. . ."

Miguel stared at him hollowly, his face unreadable. Then in a quick, stumbling stride, he crossed the distance between them and Shesta could not bare to pull himself away as the slayer reached out, took his head in his hands, and kissed him deeply. The tiny slayer's hands grappled for support as he swooned, clinging to the other soldier's shirt as his senses flooded with the brunette's wonderful taste and the feeling of his tongue exploring the warm depths of his mouth in sweet perfection. When Miguel pulled back finally, the blond sagged.

_"Dry wine. . ."_ Miguel murmured again, drawing in a long breath and closing his eyes.

Shesta blinked, breathing heavily and his eyes slightly misted. His mouth lingered with Miguel's fleeting, familiar flavor - and now in its depths, something disturbingly new.

"Like dry wine. . ." he whispered in a shaking breath, and his voice cracked. Gritting his teeth against swelling emotion as Miguel caressed his cheek, Shesta wrenched back a helpless sound as he saw Miguel's beautiful, blue eyes dance with exhilaration.

"And if you kissed him, you'd taste me in his mouth. . ." Miguel breathed, leaning close to his ear as if to whisper some splendid secret as his pitch rose, sounding almost in rapture while Shesta could only choke at the words. "On his tongue. All the way down his throat. _Inside him. . ._ "

With a deep, quaking breath, Miguel's shoulders arched and he leaned his head down against Shesta's brow as if terribly jaded; like the smoldering memory itself was too splendidly much. The blond's mind rang with the sound of shattering glass, tinkling in Shesta's ears and falling in precious shards at his feet.

He felt weak. Beneath him, he felt his legs buckle and he collapsed down upon the edge of the bed behind him with the other Dragonslayer falling along. Miguel sank against him with a deep sigh and Shesta enfolded him carefully in his arms, cradling him until the other boy had fallen asleep. Pressing him close, the blond stared emptily across the bunk room in silence, biting his lip as he began to tremble.

Holding his perfect world in his arms, Shesta cried.


	4. Closing Remarks

In the waning day, the approaching dusk cooled the air of a what had been a particularly dry afternoon. Outside, the sun was beginning to dip below the clouds, pulling the evening through the small port window in a thin trail of pink and gold light over the floor. It danced theatrically along the middle of the room, and Shesta would have thought it very pretty if his mind hadn't been so deeply immersed by other things than the tinted rays.

It was late and a faint insistence of his stomach voiced his hunger outloud. He hadn't gone down for supper, unwilling to leave the solitude and silence of the of the bunk room. He didn't feel much like eating anyway. The other slayers had deserted the room earlier to join in on a late night of poker on the far opposite side of the barracks and Shesta knew they wouldn't be back for sometime, leaving him to himself in the empty room.

The blond was sullen and quiet, sitting alone on the single bunk below his own. Miguel's bed. A bed that Shesta had shared more than once; fully acquainted with the sink of the mattress, the cut of the slats, the weight of the blankets - all as familiar and personal to him as his own.

On his lap, Shesta clutched the white feather pillow from the head of the bed securely in his arms, delicately smoothing the fabric over and over that held a worn impression of Miguel's body from the night before. He wondered where Miguel was now, and if he would even come in tonight. The blond slayer's gaze stared drawn and sunken over the bunk, his hands plaintively searching for Miguel's lingering warmth, fingering his sheets and smelling his nightshirt. It filled his senses, crystal and beautiful; reminiscent of the smell of the brunette's hair, the spice of his skin.

Days had passed since that morning Miguel had walked into the room, when Shesta had held him so close and spilt tears as Miguel had slept long in his arms. Even now it hurt still. Maybe now more so. The brunette soldier hadn't spoken a word about his experience that day since, and Shesta hadn't inquired - he didn't want Miguel to tell him and he didn't want to know. Thinking about it was too painful.

The other boy had changed. Mindful and diligent in his duties again, once more regaining his focus and concentration in training and drills - but sequestered now. Miguel went off alone often, Shesta didn't know where and was too hesitant to ever venture the question. He would have had liked to have thought things had gone back to the way they had been before. Albeit, for a while Miguel had almost appeared to have regained his attentiveness to the tender moments Shesta and he had used to share; still passing gentle touches, subtle affections when no one was looking, private and intimately personal.

Then last night, for a single split moment since the travesty in the bunk room days before, Shesta had dared to believe that things had never changed when Miguel had made a silent, but eager implication with a suggestive flash of his eyes. Taking the chance when the other's had all left the room, they'd locked the door and Miguel had taken the blond up in his arms and kissed him, as deep and as needing as he'd ever had, articulating desire so intense that it had vibrated through Shesta's chest and shook the tiny slayer to the core. Shesta had swelled, drowning in the boy's soft ministrations and kissing through Miguel's purity and ardor with exuberant devotion.

But somehow it had been different - the brunette had probed further into Shesta's mouth blindly, insatiably; as if questing for something that he'd believed buried in the secret recesses of Shesta's taste, and his body language had spoken obvious rueful disappointment when whatever it had been searching for was discovered absent. For the rest of the night Miguel had seemed detached and almost uninterested. The disposition had hurt Shesta stingingly for a short time, but he'd forgiven the falter as they'd pursued, eventually forgetting entirely, lost in a sea of woven cotton blankets and the warm heat of Miguel's skin.

For one mere, indescribable second, everything had been perfect again. A momentary and fleeting perfection that had all completely floundered when Miguel had wounded with a final, callous offense: when amidst his rapture had dared to moan another name other than the blond's own. His beseech of their lord had risen on a single lusting breath while at the very height of their passion, and the nuance of Miguel's voice had driven home such an insult and shook Shesta so harshly as to be unforgivable.

He choked. Something in his chest tightened, ripping his insides apart and making his eyes sting and his shoulders quiver.

_And it hurt so much. . ._

Shesta's world was crumbling around him. Battered and broken in a single instant with one reeling blow by the one person who had been the very core foundations to begin with; who had reinforced the sturdy crystal walls that lay crumbled now, cracked and splintered at his feet. And Miguel didn't even realize it.

For a second Shesta chastised himself lightly, heavy with guilt at conscientiously laying fault of his pain at Miguel's feet. Hooding his eyes, he frustratingly wiped the wet beads from the corner of his eyes with a palm and bit his tongue.

He was being so foolish. What right did he have to claim possession anyway - there was no contract, no unwritten agreement. The two of them simply offered comfort to one another when it was asked for, provided solace upon each other's request. After all, where else could they go? They worked together to survive - he was just Miguel's partner; his confidant; a warm mutual body to share at night.

A friend.

. . .That was all.

A small sound rose in his throat and threatened to voice the emotion swelling deep in his chest. Shesta buried his face in the cushion of the pillow, clutching it against his chest like a precious life preserver.

_. . .everything got so small, how did I get so small. . ._

He wanted someone to blame, to hurl boiling abuse at and this hurt that coiled in a pit inside him. He wanted to strike back at the strange new foreign taste that accosted Miguel's mouth now like some hostile invader; Shesta wanted to smother it - this utmost betrayal that burned him black from the inside with red fire and stung him like cold shards of silver metal.

. . . But he couldn't bring himself to bare hatred for the captain. Ages of respect, admiration, and loyalty were quick in condemning Shesta's looming accusations, baring down upon this new spite that reared bitter and jealous with stern authority - yet still somehow, he could do nothing but resent this haunt as if it were meant to be some cruel, personal unjustness.

Taking a deep breath, Shesta scooped the tangled blankets around him into his arms, burying his face in the fabric and trying to hold on to their sweet scents.

Never had he tried to suppress Miguel's longings before. The brunette was given right to his colorful fantasies like anyone was, but this was different. There had always a safety before, the security of knowing that it would only ever remain a muse; that there would never be a chance for it to be anything more - and that assurance had used to make Shesta feel safe and warm and move his hands to hold Miguel closer as they'd sleep under his blankets.

But now it would never be the way it was. It would never be anything like before. Ever.

One single night had stolen away something enormously precious, staking claim and leaving its mark as some terribly cruel mock without even realizing it, and now everywhere his lord's remnants marred the brunette's flesh. In Miguel's mouth, on his hands, tangled in his hair. It was an utterly crushing feeling to be able to touch him and realize at the same time that Miguel wasn't even there; the feeling of being so intimately a part of him and all the while knowing Miguel was holding someone else. It shattered him.

From across the room, Shesta watched as the tinted sunlight danced and pirouette along the floor, crept towards the corner and then it was gone, the jovial little theater done for the night. He gave a tight squeeze of the woolen blanket wrapped in his fists, dampened in spots from his eyes.

He didn't have any choice. The roles had been firmly set from the beginning, duties determined, ranks awarded and withheld - there was nothing he could change. This was his place, and for the first time, Shesta had never felt so helpless. He had no right to speak out; to accuse; to give reason. Only to comply.

He was Dilandau's second.

. . .And Miguel's.

He closed his teeth over his bottom lip, quivering from everything but the cold, then slowly laid down near the head of the bed and hugged his knees close to his chest as the room darkened with the fading rays of the dying sun. Shesta closed his eyes and pulled the blankets under his chin, cuddled in Miguel's warmth.

Miguel would come back. He always did, after all. And he would take Shesta in his arms like he always would, and run silk fingers softly over his lashes, and whisper tender affections and assurances that were Shesta's and his alone - but somehow, he knew Miguel wouldn't even be there. Not really. Not now.

Because when all was said and done, he knew he would still always be second.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Dilandau didn't know how late it was. He was shut in and removed from the pale colors of the twilight skyline outside the corridor, and the shower drummed out the shrill chimes of the clock, fighting for dominance in his ears and neglected the captain the passing of the time in his quarters. The walls closed in, dark, silent, and brooding; lining the room with an awkward stillness and lack of security that he was unaccustomed to experiencing within his own chambers.

He was hot and restless and sore, and the scalding water cratered against his skin and peeled it raw like a vicious storm of rain without the lightning to spear the sky. Steam rolled along the tiles and hung off the chrome faucet above. One of his hands braced out against the shower wall, splayed fingers numb and red, while Dilandau stood unmoving letting the water bead down his matted hair to cradle and line in his eyes, then watching glassily as it fell away and swirled down into the drain below his feet. In the next room, the lamp was turned high so he could see the cold glow from the bath.

He slowly moistened his lips, breathing thinly through his teeth in a muddled sort of sobriety and wincing at the warm water as it poured over the fresh, swollen cuts on the back of his hands and white knuckles. Outside in the empty sitting room, the mirror mounted on the far wall hung shattered and cracked; shards of glass lay strewn across the floor glinting in the soft hue of lamp light, neglected. The first chambermaid by would clean it up the next morning.

_CRACK._

His finger twitched. The albino had spent a long time just staring, tracing the hollow eyed reflection that had stared back across from him as a warm, heavy breath had whispered illicit words on the back of his neck. He'd lashed out once, and a long crack had snaked across the glass, marring the ivory frame in the mirror and splintering each perfect mimicry. Then retreat; silence; watching the beautiful blood colored eyes. But then a moment later he'd felt soft seeking hands brush his skin, holding him in the dark, and he'd retaliated once more; throwing his full force behind the sudden adrenaline rush with ferocious instinct. The sound of the shattering glass rang in his ears and stung almost as much as the malice of his bloodied knuckles.

_. . .perfect crystal tinkling to the floor. . .tiny little shards of diamond. . ._

It streaked fresh and brilliant in the back of his lids once again now when he closed his eyes, and fluttered along the tips of the hairs on his skin. He caught a breath between his teeth but didn't blink. If shutting his eyes made him see it then Dilandau had no wish to close his eyes in the wake of that night.

He hadn't been able to move. The door had slid closed after Miguel and Dilandau had not pulled away for a long time; bracing back against the door frame as if to keep himself merely standing like some wretched, defenseless cripple. It had felt like hours, and he'd still heard the echo of Miguel's footsteps outside in the corridor.

Not till to the softer sound of a maid's steps and the rustle of feminine skirts had the captain moved and opened the door; pulling her in and throwing charm and discreetness to the wind to work deftly on the laces of the bodice before the door had even shut behind them. He didn't even remember if she'd fought - just falling back on the bed and releasing his bottled up frustration and shot nerves in a fit of blind desperation, hard, vicious, and long; wanting to get rid of that terrible coveting that still burned insatiably into his skull; trying to clean every trace of Miguel out of him.

Days had passed since then. The bed had been set with fresh linen after being stripped and sent with the wash, but now he found the texture of the sheets uncomfortable, feeling pressed under the weight of the counterpane. The private shower in his own quarters had been long tended to, and he bathed more frequently than he slept, obsessively even. Incessant with the water and ivory white soap, Dilandau found himself enduring the scalding heat like he couldn't get rid of the dirt beneath his nails and the soil from his hair; an adamant chore now, as if suddenly noticing the dirt and grime around him everywhere. He picked and scraped at the pinches of filth lining the cracks and crevices of the shower tiles relentlessly, until his finger was sore and callused and his nail had been worn down to the skin.

He curled unconsciously more into the rain of the shower, eyes drawn and unfocused in steam so thick he couldn't see to even reach out in front of him. The sound of the hot water filled and bubbled in his head. Spiraling in the flood, something soft and whispering touched him in invasion, spurring little feather memories and recounts that lapsed over and over again on the rim of his mind and leaving a constant tick below his eye that refused to subside.

_. . .snap snap snap. . ._

Somewhere beyond the water there might have been the sound of someone outside his quarters, a soft knock at the door, perhaps a voice of concern to the earlier noise from his rooms. Dilandau's finger twitched sharply at the muffled noise but he didn't move, and eventually the sound sunk back and was smothered beneath the roar of the shower.

It was a threat against him in such a way: the close, confined proximities to everyone else around you all the time that came with residence on a ship like the Vione. It gave people an easy chance to get to know a person well. Dilandau's progressive restlessness had not gone unnoticed, he knew - there were glances, suspicions; timid, subtle queries and concerns that stirred now, but fortunately Dilandau had a knack of retaining enough menace in his tone to defend against questions.

Others, however, he simply avoided. He realized the alarming attention he was attracting from even the withdrawn Fanelian commander, and it was easier to sidestep than confront while under the Strategos' scrutiny. Folken had met his eye the first time with his usual drawn, placid expression, though held it for a mere moment longer than usual; appraising the new twitch in the captain's hands, the edginess in his stride. It was as if he'd been sizing him up to burrow deep for whatever Dilandau was not telling him; to carve out the truth of the atrocious sodomy committed behind the blind eye of his command.

Thankfully, Folken had been given other matters to intrude in recently. Word had been delivered - something about an attack on one of the imperial mines commissioned in the secluded south here in Asturia. Van. They'd changed course, and the Dragonslayer captain had been given grant to send out teams in determination to catch wind of the bastard Dragon and pin a tail on its movements again.

Both the revival of the pursuit and the impending conquest of Freid had helped ground Dilandau once more. He found a desperately sought distraction in the intensified drills and training; spending the days engrossing his priorities to the upcoming battle and turning his attention back to passions of steel blades and flame red metal, like it should be. Anything to take his mind off the haunts of soft caresses and warm, urgent lips that sucked the breath dry from his lungs.

_'Was it really that awful?'_

He marveled at the question and the unfairness of it. How dare he. Dilandau had never felt so livid with humiliation.

Such an impossible breach of grant and privilege, and Miguel had toyed the feat with the ease and bearing of a spoiled, self-indulging child. Without so much as a word he'd picked the captain apart from the inside out; had seen him helpless, made him vulnerable to the merest touch - and now Dilandau felt unwelcome in his own skin, unconsciously labeled a traitor by his own body.

The pouring water hurt, hammering down against his head to cut down between his shoulders and curl towards his ankles, once and again stumbling upon hints of lingering soreness that had been believed past and gone - humbling and mortifying remembrances that still branded his shaken pride. It seemed almost like some sick, shameful revenge for the bruises Dilandau had forced Miguel himself to sport days earlier. Tokens of disgrace and tarnish, from the tender irritations to the deep rose colored bruises at the base of his neck and under his jaw that seemed to incessantly itch. They tattooed his milky complexion unlike anything he'd ever received as keepsake from any whore, and every now and then his hand jerked up to scratch at the skin in a relentless fashion, like a mongrel at a tick, until the flesh was raw and his fingers were twitchy and darted back and forth by his side.

_. . .snap snap snap. . ._

He brushed his bare chest lightly without thinking, trailing the beads of water that rolled over his skin and fluttering at the spot below his neck, bare and empty; still feeling the need to blindly fumble for the missing object in a detached sort of way that had once taken up the space. It hadn't even occurred to him that it was gone until the day after, and now he constantly found himself noticing the absence of the feather weight around his neck, an awareness that wouldn't have been so acutely prominent had he simply misplaced it.

It troubled him - not particularly the loss itself, it could be replaced - but taken back by Miguel's boldness. Dilandau didn't even remember the slayer stealing the small souvenir, at the time too distracted by the tiny tremulous shocks and spiraling white sensation to have note the thieving.

Sometime during that night, he realized suddenly, he'd managed to lose himself to the touch. Miguel's touch. The realization came daunting and unprecedented as Dilandau stared through the glistening silver veil of wet bangs that hung in front of his unblinking eyes.

Garnet irises constricted tight, and a convulsive shudder shook Dilandau's frame from head to toe. Soft, suckling whispers licked his ear and something seemed to cradle him in the water, feathery finger tips that wrapped him in heat, gentle and careful as if handling delicate crystal glass. He could still feel the red hot burn of the path Miguel's touch had traced, like looking at a detailed map of the soldier's exploration and pinpointing where he had conquest and marked as his own.

_. . .SNAP._

Something in him felt sick and for a moment Dilandau thought he was going to retch. He braced against the wall and closed his eyes for a short moment, fisting his hands and rocking back and forth tediously on the balls of his feet under the rain, trying to clean off the trace of Miguel's hot skin.

There was a long protracted silence that hung as thick as the steam around his head. He couldn't hear the water. All that echoed in his ears suddenly was his own thin breathing, each breath a labor and effort to draw up from his lungs.

Everything had changed, and yet somehow, everything was still the same. Still there. Just different. A different glance now; shorter, less subtle, almost as if those monstrous blue eyes dared to flaunt the right of such an frightfully informal and intimate expression. As if the brunette felt too comfortable to look at him whenever he pleased, like he could see below Dilandau's skin and was remembering fondly his handiwork. It was a terrifying new vanity Miguel seemed to bare like a child with a precious secret which was their's to hold and keep, complete with an almost giddy thrill and covert smile that reflected only in his eyes but never dared reach the corners of his mouth.

Dilandau's finger twitched against the wall again and his eyelids flickered behind locks of silver hair that hung wet in his face. He grimaced and set his jaw, turning his focus to the forthcoming chase, his thoughts to linger on the rush of the kill; the shape of a weapon; the smell of smoking melef metal and charred soil underfoot. More important things required his attention in a battle than to tread on haunts and regrettable memories. Regret was not allowed. Regret was a distraction and a weak link, and a weak link would break the chain and get someone hurt.

_. . .Gatty drops his shoulder when he lunges. . ._

warm skin

_. . .Dallet pivots to slow on the heel. . ._

gentle, urgent hands

_. . .Shesta charges on the wrong foot. . ._

lips softly grazing his neck

_. . .Guimel has a weak upward fence. . ._

a small, tremulous moan

_. . .Miguel always drags on his left. . ._

jolts of new, horrifying sensation

_Miguel always drags on his left._

Dilandau drew in a thin breath and held it as he clung to the shower tiles, finding it suddenly hard to stand. He shivered once more and bit his lip until the taste of a bead of blood blossomed against his tongue, and he stared down at the floor, his eyes stinging and blurred, his fingers raw, and his back aching from the torrent spray that lashed and cut down his skin. He hadn't noticed the water become so cold.

Focus on the chase, the fight, the kill. Turn his attention back to things important and away from this crude obscenity forever brazen on his lips; wash the wound with blood, finish what water could not.

Things were no different - Miguel remained the subordinate and Dilandau the lord; the captain commanded authority and obedience and it would be given - but always still, somewhere behind the rapt, daunting blue gaze, the memory would still burn.

Because when all was said and done, he knew that it would never be enough.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

A small draft swept over the floors, cooled from outside. There was a lull of activity from the landing bay below. The anchorage stood empty for a time, barely voiced with the steady hum of electrical equipment and creak of the metal scaffolding that echoed high in the rafters, dancing amid the line of silent navy melef units that hung in queue alongside the narrow catwalk. Miguel's chest rose and fell in unsteady tandem, his nose fresh with the smell of steel and black oil.

He stiffened, a flush rising in his cheeks, and breathing shallow with fluttering breaths that rose in a spiraling swell of heat. Warmth; a sharp, punctuated intake of air; then a hot shudder and release as almost immediately the heat and sensation began to ebb.

Miguel loosened and leaned back, gaining back his breath and letting the warm tingle relax and fade. He was still for a long time, sweating and panting lightly. There was the faint sound of the docking team returning to mull about from the deck below, registering as only a slight enough threat to hush his harsh breathing - the crew scarcely ascended these long catwalks that spanned the hanger bay, and he'd hear them come before they noticed him there.

The weak breeze tickled past his open jacket that hung down around his shoulders. Moistening his lips, he breathed deep and stared drawn over the railings to the open bay doors below, traces of the darkened horizon dusting a layer of gold over the passing landscape far beneath the ship. You didn't get skies like this in Zaibach. There was always too much dust and smog.

His eyes fluttered a brief second as the brunette slayer ran his tongue slowly along the back of his teeth and the walls of his mouth, questing for some lingering hint of flavor that might still remain in the corners. Miguel could still taste the night.

He smiled. Dilandau had been smoking again. . . Hypocrite.

Pulling his open jacket up around himself a little, he leaned his head back against the cool railing of the catwalk, silent among the rows of Alseides suspended from their supports overhead. It was comforting to have them encircled around him, sheltering and protective like family, immersed in their massive shadows. He sat still for a long time, oblivious to their ominous countenance and dwarfed by the looming, flame-red giant standing at attention behind him at the head of the line, practically close enough to touch. Broiling heat seemed to pulse from inside the crimson shell. It warmed his arms and radiated against the back of his neck.

Absently, Miguel brushed a finger along his lip and drew in a feathered breath. He closed his eyes and behind his lids he could still recall the feeling of facing that gaze straight on, the experience of cobalt meeting garnet. Ice and fire. It was massive, exhilarating - like someone had knocked the ground out from beneath his feet and sent him hurtling down on a wild free fall.

_'One. Night.'_

Something swelled deep in his chest, a sort of fluttering sensation and tightness that made him bite his tongue between his teeth and breath quickly. He blinked hard, then slowly reached a hand inside his coat and and carefully withdrew something from the breast pocket. It glinted in the lights of the hanger, dancing like jewels before his eyes.

Cradling it in his hands, Miguel stared at the silver dog tag with an airy, almost intrigued expression, as if seeing his new acquisition for the first time. He brushed his thumb over the tiny engravings enunciating the rank, the name; respected and denote with distinguished pride.

_Albatou, Dilandau._

Miguel's fingers ran the length of the silver chain, handling it as if it were made of glass, delicate and fragile to his touch. The face was cool under his fingers - it had been such an acute sensation the first time he'd felt it, the brilliant contrast of warm flesh and the small thumb width of cold pressed between them, a hot brand tattooing his skin. It stayed curled in the inside pocket of his uniform where no one would stray upon it, and when Miguel was alone he would take it out and simply hold it in his hands, entrapped by the sight of the stolen souvenir. Even during his clandestine rendezvous with the sweet, blond second-in-command, Miguel would keep it out of sight when he'd undress; for some reason feeling the need to hide his treasure from Shesta.

He brushed cinnamon bangs lightly away from his eyes, paused, then reached around his head and unfastened his own chain that hung around his neck. Miguel examined the two tags with a contemplative expression and held them adjacent, comparing the two; the inscriptions, the cut, the heaviness of the metal discs. For the first time since that night, while he held the two tags side by side, Miguel found himself surprised by his own daring. He gazed at stolen artifact he held: the captain's possession, engraved with his name. It was like Miguel was holding the young man's soul in his hands. It wound around his fingers and fell over his open palm like strands of fine silver had for one solitary night, tinkling softly like glass and singing gentle, soothing melodies in his ears.

A piercing shiver raced his skin and he closed his eyes as it brought him back to sink deep in tepid waters where it was hard to breathe. Miguel's fingers curled tightly around the dog tag, cold to the touch.

_Breathe._

It was a shockingly imperative command, as if he were in danger of it slipping his mind; completely lost of natural, instinctive action as memory overcame consciousness. The feeling of the ivory frame wrapped around him, the electric shock of the thin lips pressed to his mouth. The heated memory of mapping the skin, the tips of his fingers feeding him the delicate curves and contours of Dilandau's slim figure spurred a feeling so incredibly ethereal, of which no rush of wine or adrenaline could possibly compare.

He'd never experienced something so remarkable as the feeling of holding Dilandau in his arms. Not a dream, but solid. Real. Drowning Miguel in reeling, immaculate sensation, surrounded in only Dilandau and the dark. His body had almost seized, coming to grips with the convulsive reality of what he had been actually being allowed privilege to, and with a single brush of the captain's skin, air had abandoned him. It had been like his lungs had stopped working - and so he'd kissed him hard, deep, sharing Dilandau's mouth; in vital need to take a share of the breath that was so short to him.

_Just breathe._

Miguel's fingers tightened quickly on the silver disc clenched in his hand. For a second the anchorage walls seemed to blur and the brunette closed his eyes, his mouth hovering upon a hairline breath that hung timidly at bay.

Touch. Hold. Brilliant sensations that had blinded him in the dark, as rapt and new like a day-old infant taking a first breath of air. The slayer had found a soft spot on the albino's neck just above his shoulder, and when he'd probed gently Dilandau had breathed in fast and seemed to have braced against Miguel on weak knees. The single movement had been the foremost and acute shock. Timidness had fled beneath the exhilarating pressure of the older boy clinging to him and Miguel had swelled, enthused at his power to have coerced quivering, beautiful little moans from the soft lips that rose like a gentle crescendo.

He'd wanted to share it with him. To share with Dilandau his rapture and splendor and let him feel the ecstasy of that night as Miguel had. He'd wanted to make Dilandau love him at that moment the way the slayer loved him, and it had stung him where beneath his lord's acquiescence he'd seen shame. Revulsion, to Miguel, to his touch - even fear. Miguel had been gentle and caring for the captain; attempting to ease him, trying to make him enjoy it, torn between his elation and somberness whenever he'd felt Dilandau weakly recoil as if the brunette had wounded him.

Only once - afterwards, when tired and worn, Miguel had simply held Dilandau under the blankets, gazing down on his face like a treasure as the albino had laid motionless, almost sated. Miguel had kissed him slow and with tender gentleness like the nurturing of an infant - and amidst jaded reluctance, lips had eased and coaxed his own, mapping his mouth in an unmistakable fluttering embrace. In need of security and protection, a safe hold. There had been no implied affection behind it - but still - not a flinch. Not a grimace. Just a soft, pleading quest shaping over his lips that had felt like a child groping for the reassuring hand of a parent; something to hold on to.

Miguel had just laid with him with his hands trailing feathery upon his chest, turning down to stare at the silver obtrusion revealed against the white skin when his fingers had brushed the cool metal. He'd wanted to remember the exact moment. To carry a piece of it. The memory branded his palm now like cold, molten fire, and made his hands tremble and a gaudy thrill trace a tremulous finger up his spine.

Miguel's fist slackened suddenly, and as his hold gave way the dog tag slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor of the catwalk. The sound rang in his ears and bucked him forwards, and the breath he'd been tortuously holding in without even knowing it exploded in an overwhelming gasp that echoed in between the railings and walls, threatening to ripple the elegant drapes of purple that caped the crimson red giant towering behind him.

He took a moment to settle again. As Miguel sat back he could feel his heart still drumming out a rapid chorus against his chest, excited at the brief surge of adrenaline. He held a hand upon his left side, drumming his finger lightly in time with the rhythmic tempo. It seemed foreign to him, like the beat had changed - as so many things. Food had a different taste now; the air a different smell; even the weight of the clothes on his body felt new and strange. Like everything else. Different now.

He remembered the sound of Dilandau's heart. Miguel had counted the pulse, felt it beat beneath his hand as his own did now, following the quiver of each breath as they had rippled all the way down his arms. It had left him with a sharp, grinding ache that pulsed through his blood and clung inside to the walls like a wonderful drug, and left his body to beg and weep for more. Miguel had had a taste of it, in his mouth and against his skin. He didn't want it anymore.

He needed it now.

Tentatively, the slayer drew the fallen dog tag into his hand again and held it with vibrant reminiscence. He ran his finger tips over the face and coiled the chain around his hand, drawing over the curved cut and engraved characters as if he were crafting the tiny disc of metal straight from the forge himself.

_Watch but no touch; crave but never take. Fundamental rules._

But this was his now - a part of the captain he could keep for his own. Something he could touch whenever he wanted. It kept him alive and his feet anchored to the ground, while he slept, while he ate, while he danced in line through training and daily schedule day in and day out, and sustaining him until he could curl late in bed and await his lord's return. Miguel would hold him under the blankets, sheltered from the cold by only the bare heat of Dilandau's body beside him, and brush a strand of stray silver from the closed eyes while he'd watch him sleep. That night, and every night after that, and leaving Miguel to dream even when he was awake.

Every night he stayed.

_'No more of this crazy shit, Miguel,'_

A final blow. It had been as pleading as it had meant to be cold and abrasive, intended in every way to malign whatever last remaining aspiration the slayer had still dared cling to in the wake of that night. Something inside urged him to resent, but he didn't, the swift cruelty and spite striking within him a cord as harsh as the captain's authority itself; something to respect and to see for what it was, and never would Miguel speak a word against him for it . Bleed to avoid a scar, wound in order to spare the pain - because that was Dilandau Albatou's way.

He loved him. He'd always love him.

But not in the way Miguel wanted.

The noise in lower hanger dulled to a monotone hum and hung in the air while gas lamps were lit and lines of overhead bay lamps buzzed to life in the dwindling daylight like an dying ember in the fire. Cradling the back of his head between the bars of the railing, Miguel closed his eyes, caressed by the breeze that passed in the anchorage doors and warmed by the heat resonating from the looming red giant behind him. He breathed the evening air, curling into the monstrous shadow.

His fingers molded around the silver token, glittering in the shadows; protected in his hands, reverenced by his eyes, and to be embraced and fostered like another prevailing mouth of air; just to keep him breathing.

Because when all was said and done, he knew it would last him through another night.


	5. Afterthought: Author's Notes

This is the part that comes after the story where I lay aside some time to examine my writing and just probe into some general things which may or may not interest you. Feel free to leave if you have better things to do. And bring me back a sandwich.

 

**_Technical Fluff:_ **

Yes, I know it took a freakishly long time for the fourth and final chapter to be finished. I'm a scary-ass slow writer ninety-eight percent of the time, and I should have known better than to think I'd be diligent enough to post chapter by chapter instead of as a whole. Gomen. ^_^;;

Gya ha ha, but oh, the fun with Dilandau! He's the most intriguing character I've ever seen, and is simply the greatest character in the world to write. I always route for the villains because they always have so much more depth and personality than the protagonists, not to mention Dil also has this whole extra _stark-raving insane_ thing going for him. I love playing around with him, and it was also cool to get inside Miguel and a little of Shesta as well, something the series never really did. Miguel was a nice, simple and open character with a lot you could work with, and I just personally think Shesta cries out "gay".

As for the story idea itself, it literally just sort of evolved one day while I was half-listening to the song "Outside" by Staind. Whether it was the lyrics or the music, the idea just came to me and all of a sudden from zero to zero-point-four seconds I already had Miguel's hallway scene and the shower incident firmly lodged and mapped out in my head, and then it just wove out from there.

This was a great chance to have some fun with this side of Dilandau, a little more vulnerable kind of look at him, and explore the emotional and mental bonds and dependencies that he has with his charges. I wanted to write about a bit of a deeper relationship he could have had with one of his slayers, but one that was _not_ in Dilandau's favor as they're usually written as.

As mentioned earlier, I don't think of Dilandau's character as gay - I never have, and if anything I think he'd be almost more homophobic. Don't get me wrong, I love yaoi. I'm the epitome of your cliche' yaoi glomper that squeals with fangirlish glee at the thought of two beautiful men together, and to be perfectly frank, I _thoroughly_ enjoy the concept of Dilandau straddling another man. It's just that I don't think the character ever would. There's two Dilandau Albatou's that I keep locked away in my imagination: the terribly yaoi one that glomps anything male in a forty yard distance and that I giggilishly indulge by reading yaoi fanfiction; and then the one that I write with and fanatically try to remain as in character with as I actually interpret him as being. It's a personal opinion, and one of many. But to each writer their own.

Choosing a setting to work with within the series span was a kicker, until I realized that some rather lengthy periods occur in which we don't have a clue to what goes on during. The last time we see Dilandau and his company is in Palas as Escaflowne flies off during episode seven, and then there's this big, huge stinkin' gap until he makes his entrance again along Freid's border to duel with Van in episode nine. According to the series timeline that I meticulously drew up for myself, realistically there has to be about two weeks here at _least. What happened during that whole time?_

 

**_Notable Notes:_ **

I know, I know. My whole concept of Dilandau having two second-in-commands. In most fanfics, author's portray either Gatty or Shesta as Dilandau's single right-hand man, usually depending on facts gleaned from the anime. The duel second-in-command thing sounds silly but when you think about it, it's the only logical set up - first off, both Gatty and Shesta get relatively the same amount of screen time through out the series, so that's a toss up. Gatty is often perceived as the "messenger boy", but yet he seems to get a lot of one-on-one audiences with Dilandau like when he objects to his tactics in the fourth episode, and to Dilandau's obsession over his scar on the Vione - and besides, who's to say delivering a simple order from General Adelphos is mongrel work anyway. Shesta also has a lot of scenes with the captain too - when he runs after Dilandau's Alseides in the anchorage, as well as when he trails at Dil's heels in scene three of the "Thought of the Jeture" drama CD. During the siege of Freid, it's true that Shesta appears to be acting as Dilandau's right-hand man, but then again, remember though that during Allen and the Crusade's assault on the Vione, Gatty seems to be the one assuming the leadership role in Dil's absence. Both boys get almost the same amount of physical abuse and number of beatings from their lord if you count when Dilandau bitchslaps Shesta good in "Thought of the Jeture" scene three, and Dilandau seems to call out both their names with equal frequency in his sporadic fits, so that brings us to a stalemate.

As far as I can tell, both Shesta and Gatty hold the same rank, though very likely are at least higher than the other Dragonslayers evidenced strongly by two cases: the first being the Fort Costelo scenes and particularly the internet screencap that exists of both slayers flanking Dilandau and both having the role of bearing the Zaibach banners; the second because of scene ten of the Jeture CD, where _both_ Gatty and Shesta share an audience together with the captain. Hence my duel second-in-command theory. I have a whole logical plan of how the rank would be shared efficiently duty-wise and during battle and crisis situations, but it's long and complicated and requires more of an essay than some. . .uh. . .two already-lengthy paragraphs. But again, my own opinion. *Shrug*

I understand that Gaea is meant to be a completely different world, and for all I know their military policies and codes of conduct are totally unlike the everyday world. However, I think it's reasonable to assume that when Dornkirk came from Earth into power in Zaibach, he could have very likely implemented the same standard military regulations, rules of conduct, and procedures that are held on Earth for the four demon armies of Zaibach, so that's what I've primarily based their military structure around.

And if you're anything like the nitpicker I am, you've probably noticed the repeated references to the name of Jesus through out the story. I'd just like to make clear that these were not thrown in on a whim for colorful dialogue. Before I began writing I actually did some slight research into the background of Sir Isaac Newton and discovered that he was indeed an avid Christian. I may be completely out of the water on this one, but I think it's justifiable to also believe that when he came to Gaea it's completely plausible that he also introduced the idea of Christianity. For all anyone was told about Zaibach's religious beliefs in the show, it might very possibly _be_ a Christian country. Who's to say. In any case, I thought it gave me a strong enough case to include references to the Jesus name. (Thanks to Eva for rousing this query and reminding me to include it in my author's notes.)

And lastly - all right, so I'm assuming the Vione has full scale plumbing. For god's sake, Zaibach has electricity so who's to say that they don't make use of piping and water heaters. We already know they're at least familiar with the concept, evidenced by the mechanical workings of the Alseides units when they pump crima metal to flood the cockpits. Besides, I needed a reason for Dilandau to taboo and wander down to the communal showers. Work with me here.


End file.
